AIR CONDITIONING AND CAMPING

Utah is not known for heat. It is known for snow. The snow here is soft and light. Not hard like you would make a snow-ball out of. They say because it travels over the Great Salt Lake it becomes light and dry. The light snow is the best for skiing in most of the world. There are many lifts with equipment rentals to enjoy skiing down the choice mountain sites that are located here.

This is the year that our air conditioning stopped working. One repair man said it must need oil, because it rattles. Another said, I will do a free look and then charge you to fix it. Heat doesn't bother my husband, because he is from Australia and it is very hot there - just like Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona. I left the HOT to get cool. I want to sit under a nice cool blow of the working air-conditioner. OK, I'm spoiled. I worked for many, many years under air-conditioning. By the time I got home, it was cooler and evenings are usually nice. By ten p.m. it is cool out on my deck. However, one won't sleep on the deck all night - hum-mm bugs, mosquito's, strangers not invited. Yes, I'm chicken!

An outdoor person is not what I grew up to be. I sent all my children to boys/girls camp, so they would be able to do the outdoor thing. I like building the wood fire and roasting hot-dogs or marshmallows. I don't like sleeping in a tent, or on the ground. I don't like to carry a pack. I don't like anything around my waist - like a belt with various things hanging on it. My feet have had many surgeries, so have my knees, my hips are often out of place...OK, so I got old and hiking and camping are not my thing. How does the saying go - my camp site is the Hilton!

Even when I was younger, I would camp with a camper (RV)- sitting on top of a truck bed. It had a kitchen, a fridge, a stove, utensils and plates to use and then wash in the nice sink. A nice mattress to sleep on, with covers - if I needed them. A place to change my clothes, shower, and pee. There was also a big cupboard to store food in cans, bags, or containers and lights. Not carry on your back to the site. Even games to play, books to read, pictures to draw - all packed under the eating table in drawers.

I remember the last camp I went on with my two grandsons. They wanted to camp-out in a tent. We set up the tent and I (of course) slept in the camper on a nice soft bed. We instructed them to NOT take any food into the tent and to turn out the lights at night - to not attract the animals. They didn't listen. During the night I heard the huffing of a breathing bear outside the camper. I listen carefully as I lay very still. {a bear can rip a camper shell wide open and forage for food}, then I thought of the boys in the tent outside the back door of the camper. I got up quickly and silently and then yelled loudly- "get in here right now". They both whipped open the tent door and ran past me into the camper shell.

I questioned them about the food. They had saved some sugary chewable to eat while they lay in the tent. They had also heard the bear sniffing around the tent. Adam said he threw out the box of candy and lay real still. They were quite scared to move. They didn't know what to do until I yelled at them. They must have felt the danger. We rolled all the windows shut, so the bear couldn't smell inside the camper. Then we waited. The bear moved away from the camper. The boys slept the rest of the night with me on my soft mattress, inside the camper.

Another strange thing happened the next day. Tyler was playing silly and took a rope and wrapped it around himself and then walked around the tree, by the road, to secure himself fast to the tree. He talked about Indians and cowboys. Adam and I were playing a game on the card table. When I looked up at Tyler, I had this terrible feeling. I felt he was in danger. The spirit tells us of danger if we listen. I said, Tyler get untied and come over here this minute. Tyler didn't like me ordering him around, but he obeyed. As soon as he got to the area of the table where Adam and I were playing, I looked up and there was that BEAR. The bear was walking slowly toward our camp. We had our garbage tied up off the ground, not thinking that bears get on their hind legs and that they are very BIG. We had seconds to get inside the camper. If the bear had decided to run towards us, we would all have been goners. I got the boys in first and we sat on the bed and I told them to be very quiet. We waited quite a while. Tyler began to shake with fear. Then we looked out the window and the bear (after having shred our garbage sack, was walking away from the camper. I guess toward some one else's camp-site.

When we talked with the Park Ranger, he said the bear is in its habitat and it goes where ever it wants. We are camping in his yard. Then he said, that bear has never clawed anyone yet. I was glad that we knew how to get out of its way, so we weren't the first clawed campers.