Travel Rogue

August 19, 2005

It's raining, it's pouring...

If you've never been trapped in a leaky tent with a 6'5" boyfriend during a flash thunderstorm, I don't recommend it. At 2am, the ground started shaking. At 2:01am, the rain started tapping. At 2:01:30, the rain was hammering down on the tent like there was no tomorrow, the tent was illuminated with lightning and the ground shook with the force of the thunder. You know that old trick, count the seconds between the flash and the thunder, and you can gauge how far away the storm is? It works. There were 0 seconds between the lightning and the thunder, and yes indeed, we were getting stormed on.

Groggily propped the eyes open, verified that indeed, it was raining, and tried to go back to sleep on my little camp pillow. (Hand-stitched that little pillowcase myself, thank you very much!) Argh, mumble, groan. "What?" asked Dave. "Lantern's outside," I grumbled as I forced my body up and into tevas. "Ungh," said Dave. Just goes to show that he and I continue to operate on the same wavelength. We both stumble out of the tent and still only half-awake, proceed to zip up the rain fly and throw gear in the truck. Back inside the tent, I peer up at the supports and thank God that the crossframe is made out of extending fiberglass poles and not telescoping, lightning-friendly metal rods. The stakes are metal, but they're driven deep into the earth. No worries, right? Wrong.

"Ungh," says Dave again, exhibiting his natural talent for verbal communication. He wipes away at his forehead. There's a leak in one of the seams of the rain fly. It's a slow leak, only about one drop every 30 seconds or so, similar to Chinese water torture, or so I'm told. "Not bad," I think to myself. After all, the only thing between us and the fury is this thin nylon tent, and it's doing a pretty good job of keeping us dry for the most part. And besides. The leak wasn't over me, it was over Dave! (Kidding, kidding.) The only solution was to move the sleeping bags away from the leak. Easy. Five minutes later, "Ungh," says Dave. Another leak sprung, this time spurring us to shine a flashlight on the tent to see where it was coming from. Same thing, through a tiny hole in the seam. Nothing we could do to fix it at night. We move the sleeping bags one more time. It's not so bad, my feng shui is a bit off now, but at least we're not under any leaks.

If Dave hadn't been there, I probably would have packed up right then and there and driven back to Chicago. But being with him, I knew everything would be fine.

"Ungh."

Posted by carolyn at August 19, 2005 12:41 PM

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Posted by: Dave at August 22, 2005 01:22 PM

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