A Road Trip and a Miracle

Summer Breeze, Day 19

In a week, Weston will be leaving with a bunch of his mountain-man friends for a one week hike in the Uinta Mountains. He's been excited about it for several months and has been using his pay from his new job to buy needed supplies.

My son is no stranger to camping, having grown up in a mountainous region. He's camped in a snow cave and has slept in a hammock. Overnight. In the mountains. Where there are wild animals. Who eat people.

Before I get myself all riled up about the dangers of this upcoming camp-out, I'll carry on with the road trip story.

A couple of weeks ago, Weston bought a new sleeping bag for the trip. Couldn't he use our family sleeping bags?

No, because they aren't "mummy style" bags.

Couldn't he use the new mummy style bag that he bought for the mid-winter snow cave camp-out?

No, because that one was designed for below-zero temps and therefore was too heavy to be carting around while hiking 15 miles a day uphill.

He needed a compact lightweight sleeping bag that would be good for around 30 degrees at night.

You can tell I grew up in the city. I didn't know that you need a new sleeping bag for every type of camp-out. Where was Bear Grylls when I was growing up?  Oh yeah--not born yet.

Anyway, apparently the new sleeping bag didn't quite cut it on a test run so it had to be returned. (And who knew camping required test runs? Not me!) That left Weston less than 6 days to find a new sleeping bag. There was much discussion between Computer Geek and Weston as to whether it was more cost effective to drive an hour away and look for a new sleeping bag, or whether it would be better to pay for expedited shipping.

So that he could look at, feel, and smell the new bag if we took the road trip, we decided it would be better than having one shipped sight unseen. We headed to the largest nearby town, about an hour away from us. (Yeah, sorry, that's what we consider Road Trip! in my house.)

See what I mean about the labeling of mountains?  This one is mountain V.

We stopped at a sporting goods store where Weston found the perfect sleeping bag for the trip. However, it was $69.99, which was a little more than he wanted to spend. He also saw a pair of light weight cargo pants that he wanted, but they were $30.00.

Computer Geek talked him into checking out the local Big W to see if he could find something cheaper. We spent about an hour at Big W, but found that a comparable bag was indeed cheaper, with the emphasis on "cheap." It was made out of that new material that looks somewhat like heavy-duty knitted paper. They make shoes out of the same stuff. After much deliberation, Weston decided to head back to the sporting goods store and buy the $69.99 sleeping bag.

We drove back and he picked up the sleeping bag that he had been looking at before. But now, it had an added feature that it didn't have an hour ago--a pink tag!

That's right, folks, half price!

Needless to say we were in awe about the situation. We felt like Someone was looking out for little Weston. And if that Someone cares enough to make sure Weston got a half price sleeping bag, wouldn't He also care enough to make sure a bear doesn't eat him on his hike?  That's what I'm counting on.

And what did Weston say about all of this?  "Now I have enough to get the cargo pants!"