3:30 am.-
I was lying on my soft, squishy air mattress in that twilight between being awake and asleep. The distant sound of ominous thunder was penetrating my subconsciousness, but I just dismissed it as not important. There were distant voices of the other campers that had come the day before. I was thinking, why in the world are they up this early. Don't they know that there are other campers here?
Abi had been stirring around for a while already. Pretty soon, what she told me woke me up all the way. "Emmie, we need to get up now. There's a big storm headed our way. We've got to clear out to the camper."
Oh, great, I thought, here we go again!
By then, I could hear more voices outside as I crawled out of my cozy bed. The other campers that I'd heard were taking their tents down in preparation for the storm.
The thunder was getting closer and the wind was picking up. Quickly, we stripped our beds and cleared the tents out, leaving the bare air mattresses to face the deluge alone. Ry and Kels actually took their tent down! :)
Here's part of the sleepy crowd. Ry and Kels went back to bed in the camper's bedroom while the rest of us camped out on the floor, benches and couch.
One pile of blankets
Another pile
The red dote is Lewis. The storm was moving in a north easterly direction.
Brie and I crashed on the benches.
I made Gracie and Sam a bed on the floor. After sitting there for awhile, Brie wanted to lay down on the floor too, so they made room for her. To calm us all down so that we could go to sleep, I read Little Women out loud to the little people. I think the plan backfired, though. It made me so tired that I had to stop reading! :)
Aunt Carol and Abi joined the boys in the pavilion.
They had coffee, hot chocolate, hot tea, and snacks out there. Not fair!
A drenched ghost town of tents.
Abi took the camera out with her and got all the sky and pavilion shots.
Kinda scary looking, isn't it?
The bugs were taking cover too, so the pavilioners had to light a couple citronella candles...
And turn the lights out.
After a nearly sleepless morning, we finally dragged ourselves out of our various holes.
Trying to start a fire with wet wood doesn't work very well. Not sure who's bright idea it was to leave the wood out...
The zipper broke while T.J. was trying to zip his tent up during the evacuation. His tent was pretty well soaked!
Aunt Carol and Mom hanging rain flies up to dry.
Mom had the idea to put tents on picnic tables to dry out. It worked pretty well!
Still trying to light the fire...
We even had to use the cars. :)
Mom called Dad to tell him about our night and he proposed to bring breakfast for us all. He brought this yummy cheesy egg casserole and hash browns.
Dad also brought the toaster so that we could still have toaster strudels. Gram got several new flavors the day before when she took Hope back home. This is carmel apple. Oh, yeah...
Our poor tent was so wet!
This one had to be hooked on a grill. :)
We had been planning to stay till the afternoon, but it was beginning to look dark toward the west. Abi went out to the road to take a look and this is what she saw.
Look like rain to you? It was only a slight chance and hardly showed on the radar, but whatever was coming was coming for us!
Someone had reserved the pavilion for that afternoon, so the park rangers asked us to be cleared out before then.
Sitting around, just waiting.
Finally, Mom and Aunt Carol decided to just pack up and head home before the rain hit.
Taking down the rest of the girl's dormitory.
That's one packed van!
Gracie and Sam looked so cute hanging out the truck windows while the boys hitched the camper up.
KK and Brie (our little French horse, as Pa Ingalls used to say), taking a picnic table back to it's rightful place.
Putting the fire out is somehow a note of finality to camping.
Loading up the last of it!
Why do people put the Iowa flag on upside down? I saw it like that somewhere else too. Funny.
It started to rain as we were driving up the road. Saved in the nick of time!
This was about 2/3 of the blankets, not including our own laundry!
Stuff waiting to be carried back to the basement.
Tarps drying on the clothsline
We put all the pillows through the drier just to get rid of the dampness.
Other stuff drying out.
We had originally planned to have our last hurrah of Casey's pizza at the campground. Instead, Mom told everyone to come to our house.
We made coffee and had tea and hot chocolate set out.
There they are! A classic American meal, greasy pizza, breadsticks, and chips on paper plates. :)
All together again
Everyone was tired, but very happy! Considering all that we went through, this group of adventure seekers had a grand time!
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