Drenched on Departing Day

What the hell is this? It's rain, and hard rain at that. It must’ve started somewhere just after midnight. Luckily there wasn’t any thunder or lightning – at least then. I kept hoping and thinking that it would eventually stop. Just the thought of tearing down camp in a down pour made me shudder. To my dismay it didn’t stop. If anything, it just rained harder and harder. And to make matters worse, thunder and lightning eventually accompanied it. It wasn’t long before we heard cries coming from the kids tent. Mindy did her very best to console them but after a few short minutes the cries continued. They wanted to come in our tent.

Somewhere through the early hours I heard a loud metal clang. I figured a raccoon knocked over a pan. Only problem was, we didn’t have any pans out. Later, when I went out in the driving rain to pee, I spotted the culprit. Our screenhouse/dining canopy collapsed onto the picnic table. I was certain that our new appliances (microwave, coffee maker) were damaged. It continued raining well past 9am. And ultimately Mindy brought the terrified kids into our tent. Oh boy!

I felt trapped. There I was stuck in a tent surrounded by huge puddles and our once dusty campsite nothing but a mudhole. How would we pack up in a down pour? When would I run? What about the boat? Did any of our appliances survive the rain and collapse? I was frustrated and so were Mindy and the kids. But sometimes you just have to suck it up. I got up and surveyed the damage as the rain continued falling. Our canopy collapsed after two of the poles buckled. Water poured from the coffee maker and microwave. Eventually Mindy joined me and we began planning our exit. I would go for a run and return with Mindy’s van, which was parked at the camp office lot. In the meantime, Mindy would begin the arduous task of breaking down camp from the inside out.

The run actually worked wonders on my mood. By the time I returned with the van it had stopped raining. That did nothing for our gear but made packing it a lot easier. We laid a big blanket inside Mindy’s van where we placed all of the rain and mud soaked tents. I loaded most of the hard gear in my Trooper. It was still fairly clean. The bottom of our tent was the muddiest. It went in a large hefty trash bag. Two hours later we were packed and ready to depart. We drove both vehicles to the camp dock and then walked back so that we could drive the boat to the dock from the cove. It was full of water up to the ski storage hatch. I had the pump running while we drove the vehicles to the dock. It had all but drained by the time we returned.

We didn’t fool around. Instead, we drove straight to the dock to load the boat for towing. As we readied it for the trailer the trim stopped working preventing me from raising the motor. I was scared it would drag the ramp and ruin the lower unit. We carefully pulled up and out until it was obvious that damage would occur if I went any further. As a last resort, Mindy tried one more time. Miraculously this time it worked and we were able to raise the motor to the trailering position. Woosh!
We were both stressed from a trying morning. We had no coffee and only a few small donuts for food. Mindy wanted to stop at Starbucks on our way home. I happily agreed. We stopped at the Powell Rd/ Rt 23 Starbucks. Yummy!

We made it home between 1 & 2 pm. Immediately, we began the painstaking process of unloading our gear and cleaning it up before stowing it away. Mindy took the inside stuff like laundry and coolers. I took care of the tents and crates. I set all three tents up in the back yard along with all the camping chairs and dining canopy (what was left of it). I washed all the mud away with the hose and allowed them all to dry in the happy sunshine. While toiling with the tents I took a whack at fixing the zipper on the old Winnebago tent that’s been broke for over ten years. I was able to fix it after all this time by pinching the zipper head closer together with a pair of needle nose pliers. While the tents dried I helped out inside by carrying the dry gear to the cellar.

Mindy went and fetched us a couple pizzas at Minelli’s. They went down easy. They were delicious! After dinner Mindy got the kids ready for bed with a real bath. And just as we expected, they went down easy. I went back outside to begin tearing down the tents. I was able to get all of them down folded and stowed. Honestly, they got packed way cleaner than they were before hand. And after allowing the microwave to dry out we verified that it worked flawlessly, and so did the new coffee maker. It seemed the only true casualties of our trip were the two canopy poles and Bella’s CD player. I found the 800 number for the dining canopy and part number for the poles. I planned to call the following morning. We'd have to get Bella a new CD player, too.

We enjoyed a beer or two before calling it a night and heading off to bed. What a day!