Mahala dropped her pack and wandered away to the bathroom, and I started to dig in the little side pocket of my pack for the keys, yelling that I would get the car started.

I dug.

And I dug.

And I wanted to die.

The keys weren’t in the tiny side pocket. No, no, no, this is not happening.

I dumped my entire pack out onto the parking lot pavement. I was panicking. I dug through every pocket and crevice. I prayed to whoever would listen. I thought back to the tiny creek. The keys and the filter were in the same pocket. I did not leave my keys on the trail.

Mahala turned the corner and saw the mess I made, and she knew. I started yelling “please tell me you have the spare set.”

But no. My beloved Mahala thought that since I had a set, she was good to leave hers in the car. I just started laughing. This would happen to us.

We start brainstorming. I walk all around the parking lot trying to get service, I knew my parents would be less than amused, but I didn’t know what else to do. We were exhausted, we were hurting like I can never explain, and just wanted to drive down to the campsites, pitch a tent, and sleep for two days straight.

I couldn’t get a call through. I asked Mahala to go into the lodge and see if there was anything they could do to help us, and we were in luck! I guess exhausted tourists locking themselves out of cars is common enough that the park rangers have all the stuff they need to break into people’s cars. We started cheering in the parking lot, and waited patiently for a park ranger to save us.

We waited. And waited. And…. waited. The sun started to go down, and we were just trying to amuse ourselves at that point. We danced, we ate more snacks, we languished over our own stupidity. Four hours, we sat in the sun waiting. When the park ranger came, I could have kissed him. He popped the car open, and the alarm started blaring. We searched frantically for Mahala’s keys, and she practically threw them at me and I started the car, stopping the alarm. We breathed a huge sigh of relief, and profusely thanked the park ranger for saving our butts.

Not important to the story, but the park ranger got tied up dealing with a minor car accident on one of the roads, I guess they usually have a much better response time.

I sat in the drivers seat, eyes closed, with the AC pouring over me. “Morgan, what the hell are these?” I turned and looked over my shoulder at Mahala in the back seat, and ladies and gentlemen, in her hands she held my set of keys. That had also been locked in the car along with hers. And we just died laughing. Of course, no matter how much you try to idiot proof a trip, Mahala and I can find some way to screw ourselves over.

I’m not even joking a little when I say we were breathless with laughter for ten straight minutes. I mean, at least I didn’t lose my parents keys?

After everything, it was almost dark outside and our plans to grab a campsite were foiled. We decided to say screw it and head home. “We’ll just find something else to do with the two weeks we requested off of work!”

And so that’s what we did. We surprised the heck out of our families by coming home a week and a half early, and literally ten pounds skinnier, but everyone was a little relieved that we chickened out. We filled we remainder of the week with beach trips, hiking, and doing nothing.

Y’all, what I want you to take from mine and Mahala’s shenanigans is that things don’t have to go as planned. You can get lost, you can run out of money on day two, you can get locked out of the car. If you’re dead set on having a great time anyways, and rolling with the punches you’re gonna come out of everything stronger than you went in. We don’t plan for shit to go sideways, but it does, so you make the best of it by making stupid parking lot videos and sharing the story with strangers to make them laugh.

Get lost, losers. Have a great time, and take the long way home. Until next time.