Heading up the Mountain

My kitchen table is loaded down with dishes, pots and pans, canned and boxed goods, recipe files, and the occasional note pad and bag of rubber bands.  This can mean only one thing – we’re getting ready to head up the mountain to our summer of 2014 camp hosting assignment:  Shady Dell Campground on the Mirror Lake Highway.  Next step, load it all into totes and boxes and stack it in the back of the truck.

The trailer is already in camp, courtesy of my husband and my son.  They needed a guy’s camping weekend, and since it’s still winter in the Uinta Mountains, it made sense to take the trailer.  I am exceedingly grateful.  Parking the trailer is my least favorite part of the camping experience.  I either need a lot more spatial aptitude or a lot more emotional intelligence to be truly helpful in parking this or any trailer.

The good news is we’re a lot closer to home this year than we were last year.  So we’ll be able to come down the mountain every week on our days off – instead of every other week.  More time to keep the house in good shape and to keep the rentals running.   And we’re looking forward to being able to take advantage of some of the good stuff that we’ve had to miss while we’re in camp because we’re too far away. 

So…Murphy is alive and well and living in the Salt Lake Valley.  In addition to getting the house and yard ready (where did all these weeds come from, anyway?), and packing for camp, we also have an empty apartment that we need to get ready to rent.  This particular tenant had lived in the apartment for 12 years when we bought it.  That was 12 years ago.  Why did she have to pick May 16 to move?  Arghhhh! 

But we were on it – or so we thought.  While the boys were setting up the trailer in camp, I was in the apartment washing walls.  We had a painter hired by Sunday.  He told us he’d be done by Tuesday.  Silly us – we thought he meant Tuesday morning.  Turns out he planned to finish the job on Tuesday night.  But wait – at 9:00 PM we got a call – he’s run out of paint.  Add a trip to Home Depot to the list of things we need to do before we leave today.  And this means the apartment ready to rent until next Tuesday.  Oh, well. 

Meanwhile, the stuff on the table still needs to be boxed; a cooler still needs to be packed, and the last minute personal items still need to be stuffed in duffel bags.  Whew!  Looking forward to going up the mountain so I can rest!