Trip to the Sun

So this past weekend, my folks came into town and we all headed down to Moab (otherwise known as the Sun, since it's probably just as hot) to ride four-wheelers as one big happy family. Little did we know what we were in for...
So, it all starts when my parents left Washington. They made the trip in two days so as to not tire themselves out, and play in Idaho with their quads before coming here. I guess I should back up a little further, actually. A few months ago, they bought a third quad, apparently just for this trip, cuz there would be 6 of us. They also just bought a toy hauler. This is basically a camper for quad riders, you stick your quads in there for the road, and then you pull them out and sleep in it at night. Ok, so lots of money on these two important items.
Now we get to the part about them traveling here. They left on Tuesday. By Tuesday evening, one of the tires on the beloved toy hauler blew. Crap. They wanted to fix it, but all tire stores, (specifically Les Schwab) were already closed. So they put the spare on and camped for the night. The following day, now Wednesday, after partying on the specimen of Idaho's quad trails, they headed to Les Schwab to fix the tire. Cha ching, brand new tire. They then set out on the road again.
Probably right before or right after they hit the Utah border, guess what? Another tire blows, on the same side as the first one (there are two). And again, by the time they could get to a civilization, stores were closed. They changed the tire for this occasion as well. They make it to our house Wednesday night with no further problems. Thursday morning they go buy another new tire and carefully replace the spare, hopefully for the last time, into its hiding place. We all get on the road Thursday night and head to Moab.
This calls for a new paragraph. First of all, we don't actually go all the way to Moab quite yet. We wanted to stop in some place called Green River and ride some trails there first. Here comes a huge warning sign, which we failed to yeild. The exit we were supposed to take was a....RANCH EXIT!!!! I have never in my life actually exited at a ranch exit, why? Because there is NOTHING there!!! Ever! But, we saw the ranch exit sign, and we took it. sigh. We then proceeded for about 12 miles on a dirt road in the dark, and the whole time I couldn't help thinking I was in some scary movie where the local sand livers would jump out from behind the huge rocks and attack our car. Yeah, weird I know. But it was so long! Me and my husband are traveling in a car with my brother and his wife, following our parents in the truck. They seem to forget about us, and so leave us in the dust as they move along this rugged trail at highway speed. Eventually, we catch them, at an oil rig with a huge fire blowing out the top of a pipe, in the middle of nowhere. They tell us we're lost, and will be turning around because we obviously missed the turnoff. They also ask if we saw them take the doozy of a corner where they almost lost the trailer. Yeah. This will become important later.
So we turn around and drive back for awhile, this time the truck is going much slower. We turn off at some weird turn off point that we hope is right, and eventually just find some cut-out of the road that we can park and camp without being in the middle of the road. It is now, probably midnight. So we park, level the trailer, open the trailer door, and guess what we found? It looked like somebody almost tipped the trailer on the inside....oh wait, they did. So there was apparently one strong leap that the trailer made, which caused the glass jars (full of applesauce and jam) to hurl themselves into the inside of the locked cupboard doors, flinging it open with full fury, as the jars and juice go flying kamakaze style across the trailer. Needless to say, they covered the quads with sticky, the ground with glass, and everything else. So we spent the rest of our evening (after midnight) cleaning this up and trying to get the quads outside without popping their tires. Finally, we are done and can go to sleep. Yes!
In the morning, we discover that one of the brand new tires that was just put on, has mysteriously disappeared! No just kidding. But it actually did decide to pick up a screw, which completely flattened it, rendering it once again, useless. My poor dad once again replaces this tire with our lone spare (which has now been used on 3 separate occasions for one trip). Surprisingly, the rest of this day went pretty smoothly. We drove around on some trails, got attacked by tiny bugs, and Jarom studied for his beastly test that will be upon us in two weeks.
(wow, this is really long, but I'm not done yet!)
So by midafternoon we leave and go all the way into Moab to find more trails. Once we finally found a place to park that would allow us to stay the night, it was dinnertime, so not much riding happened here. But the next day, instead of taking turns, we all doubled up and left for a whole days worth of riding. We went up and over mountains and through the woods to grandmothers house we go....oh wait, sorry. We drove all around, and I'll include some fun pictures of what we saw. We then came to a nice resting place in a dry river bed. Jarom and I decided to play around no some mini sand dunes that were next to us, while others ate lunch. So we sped up to the top of the hill, (with him driving and me enjoying the scenery) until we decided to take a sharp turn in amazingly soft and deep sand. For some reason, quads don't do well under these conditions. So the quad proceeded to tip over. I, fearing for my life, launched my body off the quad so it wouldn't roll on top of me. I couldn't really see what Jarom did (helmets are kind of limiting with peripheral vision) but he seems to think he gracefully stepped off of it while I went wailing through the air. I landed with a thud and a grunt, but the sand was like Utah's snow, soft and powdery. No harm done, except the quad was now upside down... I also got a nice splotch of sand on my helmet as a souvenir! So we struggled a bit to turn the quad completely back up again, but were successful. No dents were added as far as I could tell. We slowly returned to camp and sat sheepishly on the sidelines. (It was, after all, the newest of the three quads)
The rest of this day was uneventful. We made it back to camp alive, oh except that my mom left the parking brake on her quad for the entire ride back...yeah. kinda bad for the quad. But other than that, we had a successful day. We then came back home to good ole' Provo.
Don't worry, the story is almost over.
Monday morning my parents left for home again. That evening they call to say that they're in Baker, Oregon, about half way there, and will be staying the night. That was Monday. Tuesday night, they call again, and are still in Baker! What happened there, did they forget to wake up? Nope, the truck broke down. Something weird about the oil boiling in the back part of the truck that ruined the bearings or something like that. About $2000 worth of damage. But if they had driven another 20 miles, they probably would have lost breaks, shocks, you name it, it'd be gone, for another $4000. Exciting! So they were expecting the parts to show up this morning, to be fixed by tonight, so they could be on the road. Only one problem, they left all their food from the trailer with us kids, and had emptied out the water from the trailer so it would be lighter to haul home. They could only go to a store within walking distance, so weren't living on much food. I have talked to them tonight and they are on the road again, hoping to arrive home safe and sound tomorrow. I do see one more potential problem, though. The new parts that were just put on the truck, are not supposed to be used with a load put on them for at least 500 miles. Well, they decided to compromise and drove it about 50 miles, then hooked up the trailer and are off! With how things have been going, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't make it home by tomorrow. But that's bad to say.
Well, I hope you have successfully made it through this ridiculously long post. Good luck with that.