The Wendell family doesn’t usually do too much together; the parents work a lot, and the kids have developed their own lives. This year however, Norm, the Wendell patriarch, has decided to schedule a family vacation. He rents a van and a camper trailer, forces everyone inside, and the family sets off on a week of heavily-scheduled fun.

With all four Wendell’s in a confined space, motoring between tourist attractions, scenic vistas and the occasional point of interest, the trip turns out to be a disaster – in fact, an actual disaster – Norm accidentally drives the van over a cliff!

The van plummets 2 miles straight down into a canyon. When the Wendell’s stumble out, they realize that not only are they alive, but also that they are not alone. The same fate has befallen several others before them, and the Wendell’s are just the newest residents of a community of everyone else that’s driven, cycled, sky-dived, or even crashed their NASA landing capsule there.

So, the Wendell’s live in their camper trailer in the heart of a shantytown of all the other crashed vehicles, scattered wherever gravity set them down. Their neighbors include an astronaut and his chimp companion, a wealthy family (who live in the summer house they were transporting), a has-been British punk rocker and many more. All these characters hope to escape, but until one of their plans actually work, they make up this impromptu community known only as “Crash Canyon”. And who knows who’s gonna drop in next?!