camping at Bear Lake.....a.k.a STRIKE THREE, your out!

Ok people, is our family just not destined to camp this year???

Chris had a race this weekend so I took off work and we decided to make it a family event. I grew up going to Bear Lake each year and have such awesome memories, I wanted my children to have those type of memories. Our friend Blake was also racing so he decided to spend the night up there with his two small boys, Dash and Husdson (way cute kids!). Then our friends the Hills, found out about it and mentioned that they were going camping somewhere that same weekend and we told them that they should come with us. The original plan was to leave as soon as the kids got out of school (which is 12:30 on Fridays), but as you read in the previous post we have a history of not leaving at the scheduled time. We ended up leaving around 3:30. Blake was about an hour ahead of us and the Hill's were about an hour behind us.
Let me back up.... earlier that week our oil light had gone off so the day before we left I put three things of oil in the car.
We decided to drive by way of Evanston and had just summited Parley's canyon and was headed down the other side towards Coalville. Chris mentioned that the oil light was on and right about then I heard a sputtering sound and then the car just shut off. Chris pulled to the side of the road and tried to start the car again....no luck. We contemplated him hoping on his bike and riding into the town that was a few miles away to buy some oil, but then decided to let gravity work with us and try and coast as far as we could. So down the hill we started coasting, at one point it started to flatten out and all of us in the car where jerking our bodies forward to try and keep the car going....I'm sure it was quite the site! We hit another hill and picked up speed. Can you believe that we were able to coast all the way down to the next exit, down the exit ramp and as luck would have it, drive right into the parking lot of the Sinclair gas station that was located at the bottom of the off ramp. There was some MAJOR divine intervention there!
We filled the car with oil and still nothing happened, at this point we were worried that the engine had seized.
We called our friends to find out where they were, the Hill's had just left and decided to turn around and get their other car so that we could drive in their car. Blake had just made it to Bear Lake (2 hours away) and he turned right around and drove back to help. (Remember he had two small children with him....talk about a sacrifice).
We waited around for help for about two hours before our friends arrived and we started dividing up our stuff into the Hill's car and Barlow's car. These pictures describe the next hour pretty well.

Mile marker 155 a.k.a our expeditions tombstone.

The gas station that we pulled into. The store owner was super nice, he bought all the kids icee's.

This one says it all! Actually I was in rare form during all of this. I actually kept my cool and did not freak out or blow up at anyone...very rare for me!

Chris calling the tow truck. We had it towed to a local mechanic, we find out today what the prognosis is.

Help arrives and we begin loading. We packed this thing to the max! It reminded me of the Clampets "Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed" all that was missing was Granny sitting in her rocking chair on top of all the junk! lol

Kevin loading the truck. What a SUPERMAN!

Finally getting everything loaded at about 7:30, we had been there since 5! My kids did great and wandered around the empty fields that were next to the gas station. Luckily Sienna stayed home (with my mom) on this trip. She had dance rehearsal and couldn't miss it, if she had come we wouldn't have had room for her in the car. Plus, she just wouldn't have handled this experience well at all!

Me with all the kids. This was taken while the men were transferring all our stuff.

We finally arrived at about 10:15pm and started setting up camp in the dark. The next morning Chris and Blake took off for the race while the rest of us ate the best dang pancakes around (Thanks Rachel!) The weather was overcast, but not too cold. I just could not handle another trip in the cold or rain. I crossed my fingers really hard!

Rachel's son Josh playing at the beach...this kid is a FISH! Notice the clouds....please don't rain, please don't rain!

The bear lake monster!!! A.K.A the sand man or Austin Dean-The country singer!

me and FAze, this was taken with Chris' phone so it is not too clear.

For dinner that night, Kevin made a delicious meal of b-b-q ribs and baked beans to die for!!!

The water is beautiful!!! But oh so cold!

AT the beach! Check out the clouds.....remarkable it did not rain!

The kids had so much fun playing in the sand. It was such a great time!

A great one of me and Rachel....you ROCK girl!

Blake and cute little Hudson.

Our friend Brett was at the race as well and had to get a shot of the two guys together. Here is the happy ending to our story, Chris took 1st place overall at the race! Wahoooo!!! To bad they didn't give out a car to the winner, wouldn't that have been nice?!

Our last day there it was bright, sunny and hot. WE spent the bulk of the day at the beach and then packed up our 'Clampet' mobile and headed home. Although the trip did NOT start out ideally it was a super fun trip. Now we just have to hear back from the mechanic hoping for the best, but expecting the worse. We need a new car sooooooo badly, it just is not in the cards right now financially. Fingers crossed that this story will have a happy ending!

To be continued....