Answer: Mexico

Answer:

I found four things: bag, water, light, and tent.  This would probably qualify as a correct answer, but I can't shake the feeling that a whole lot more words lurk in this paragraph.  Send me an email if you find any more.

As we sat reviewing the events of the last three days, we realized how lucky we were to be alive.  Our family of four had planned a long trek from California to the Guaraba glaciers via the Sonora desert.  As our one-engine plane flew at erratic lazy speed over the Mexican desert we thought everything was going to be wonderful.  We were delighted to land safely and go to sleep.  We woke up in the middle of the night when a gushing torrent came down the arroyo.  We scrambled out, intent on salvaging all we could.  But our gear was out of sight.  Our plane disappeared in a sea of mud.  I called for help.  Soon a rickety truck driven by the "policia turista" came to pick us up.  The next day we were back home.

By the way, a computerized search revealed the following words deeply buried in the paragraph.  Would you take an ewe, perhaps?  Let me know  if you think any more of these are items you would take to camp: along, ands, ate, bag, dg, din, dove, em, eof, esc, ewe, ewer, fm, ft, gal, gall, got, hear, helps, hem, howl, lands, met, nag, nee, nth, off, oft, op, overt, owe, owes, owl, pin, pint, planed, pt, reed, ret, soft, sour, sup, td, terra, thee, them, theme, then, tin, tint, ton, tons, top, topic, tot, tour, urge, water, wet, yow.

In addition to these words, there are some that are lightly buried -- they are found within one of the words of the paragraph: ac, ad, aging, al, am, amble, ambled, an, app, appear, appeared, are, bled, ca, cal, call, cam, can, co, cram, de, deli, delight, disappear, do, drive, ear, eared, en, ere, err, et, eve, even, event, ever, every, ex, fl, gin, glacier, guar, gush, ha, he, hen, hi, ho, hr, ht, id, if, is, iv, la, lacier, lane, led, lee, light, lighted, live, luck, me, mid, mil, nigh, no, nor, ok, or, ought, own, pea, pear, pee, peed, pi, plan, ram, ramble, rambled, rat, re, real, realize, red, rent, rev, review, rive, safe, sap, scram, scramble, se, shin, sigh, so, son, ten, tent, thin, thing, thou, though, tic, ugh, vent, vents, very, vi, vie, view, viewing, win, wing, wok, won, wonder, zed.