Certain assumptions you can't make about a ward campout...

So Trevor and I had an interesting night last night. Our ward had a campout south of Provo by Hobble Creek Canyon and we decided it would be fun to go and meet new people in our ward. Well, last Sunday we only stayed for Sacrament meeting because we went to our cousin Molly and Taylor's blessing of their new daughter Andie. After the meeting was over, we found some maps in the back of the chapel and assumed they were directions to the campout. We grabbed one and left to make it in time for the other ward.

So Friday rolls around and we realized we didn't remember what time the activity started at. I looked on our ward's website located at lds.org and saw the campout posted from 4 pm Friday until 3 pm Saturday. We left our home about 5:00 figuring it was okay we were going to be late for this activity.

We followed the directions exactly as they were given and were so confused when we finally got to the end of the directions. We ended up at this place with a big sign that said "Grandpa's Shining Mountain: The Laughing Place". There were also No Trespassing signs lining the turnoff. Being a little confused because the directions said to look for sign called "Grandpa's Shining Mountain", we decided to enter anyway and see if we could find our ward there. I wish I had taken a picture, but I didn't feel comfortable doing it with the no trespassing signs all around.

To our surprise the place looked like someone's backyard. It was really small, had a trailer, an old jacuzzi, an outhouse, and some picnic benches. Not a single person was around. We even left the place, drove further up the road to see anything but couldn't so we went back and looked again. We kept thinking, "Yeah, The Laughing Place huh? They are just laughing at us!" We were so confused and couldn't get phone reception so we decided to leave. We figured we picked up a random map because it didn't say anything about the directions being for the campout. We had just assumed that's what they were for.

After driving for a little while back toward our home until we could get phone reception, we called someone from our ward and found out those were the correct directions, we just had the time wrong. It started at 6:30 pm. That's the last time I trust our ward's website! Not wanting to wait around and drive all the way back to that spot (I don't even know where everyone parked--there was no room!), we decided to just head back home and have our own date. We weren't planning on spending the night anyway. We went to Rumbi's for dinner, Best Buy and Michael's to window shop, checked out the movie "To Catch a Thief" from the library, and made really delicious smoothies. All in all it was a fun night, although we wish we could have gone to the activity. I learned my lesson that there are certain assumptions you shouldn't make about an activity without verifying with another person, otherwise you may end up at "Grandpa's Shining Mountain", where they are laughing at you. :0)