We talked a lot about camping over Labor Day weekend, but we didn’t want to battle the crowds. However, when we woke up Sunday morning we decided that going on a spontaneous camping trip for the night sounded a lot more fun than doing yard work. We loaded up the van, filled up the propane, bought some groceries, and headed out.

We decided to check out a spot about 60 miles northwest of our house in Nephi. It seemed small and obscure, so we hoped that it wouldn’t be too crowded. We turned off the main road and followed a dirt road for 10 miles. We drove around for awhile, looking for the perfect spot. Finally we found it! It was a flat spot with shade, a creek in the back for Max to enjoy, and no neighbors nearby.

I took Max to the creek to cool off and Nic popped the top and started setting up camp. I returned to camp and noticed that the rear, driver’s side tire was extremely low. We got out our (very small) air compressor and spent 30 minutes inflating it from 12 psi to 45 psi. Once it was inflated, we let it sit to see how fast the leak was, but after 5 minutes, we’d already lost 10 psi.

We packed everything back up, pumped the tire back up, and headed down the road to see how far we could make it. After about 3 miles, we pulled over, and the tire was low again. We decided to put on the spare and hope for the best (our spare is original, which means it’s over 30 years old, and it’s only 14″ while our tires are 16″). The closest tire shop was 60 miles away, and it was Sunday in Utah on a  holiday weekend, which means that that even if we could make it to a tire shop, they wouldn’t be able to help us until Tuesday, so our only option was to head back home.

As we made our way home slowly (35 mph) we laughed about our spontaneous adventure that was not to be.