It all began on a dark stormy night... well, yes, but we haven't gotten to that part yet. No, it actually began as Robby (whose comments follow in blue, or as Sharon claims it to be, purple), Little Robby, Jenna and I were driving to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico for the first stop on our family vacation. Along the way we talked with my mom on the cell phone and had her check what the weather would be like that night in White City, New Mexico (the town seven miles outside of the caverns). She reported that weather.com said only a 10% chance of rain. We were glad to hear it and figured that we would probably stay dry, and even if it rained, it wouldn't affect us.
We drove into town just in time to go hear a ranger presentation and see 300,000 bats fly out of the cave entrance at dusk. It was very interesting, but it also meant that we would have to set our tent up in the dark (of course, we're experienced at that by now). Luckily our tent is not to hard to assemble, just three poles that bend in arcs to form the frame of the tent. Well, since bad weather seemed unlikely neither one of us suggested staking the tent. (Okay, so we definitely didn't follow the Scout Motto that says, "Be prepared." You can start laughing now if you see where this is going.)
So we laid down for a peaceful rest somewhere between 11pm and midnight. I must say that I usually get really uncomfortable and have trouble sleeping in a sleeping bag without some padding beneath me, but this night I fell asleep rather quickly. In fact, I was sleeping so soundly that when the tent started rocking and rumbling at about 2:30am I was quite bewildered initially as to what in the world was happening. My stupor didn't last long though, and we realized that we had made a huge mistake by not staking our tent. Our tent was trying to roll away with us inside because it was being hit by a force of wind that we later found out gusted to 60-70 mph. Now, I have been through a category 1 hurricane before, and I was certainly glad to be inside the house at the time, but this time we were huddled in a flimsy tent without stakes and experiencing near hurriane force gusts of wind. (Just in case you are wondering a storm in the Atlantic Ocean becomes a hurricane when it sustains 72 mph winds.)
The alarm of the situation immediately put us to action. Robby and I both positioned ourselves on the windward side of our little shelter to stop it from collapsing inward. At this point we were trying to stay calm and began hoping that the wind would cease as soon as the rain began. How wrong we were! About five to ten minutes after the wind started the rain began, a lateral rain in near hurricane force gusts of wind. The sound of the rain and wind smashing into the tent walls was deafening and about this time Little Robby and Jenna awoke completely puzzled as to why the walls of the tent were thrashing around us. We tried to enlist Little Robby in the efforts of holding the tent in place against the wind while yelling through the clamor to calm poor little Jenna down.
So, you are probably wondering whether our tent was holding the rain out. No, not at all. As we sat with our backs to the tent walls the wind blew the rain right through creating wonderful puddles of cold water beneath our bottoms. How refreshing! (The tent had about the same effect as would a piece of fabric stretched in front of a fire hose.) And you are probably asking yourself how we managed to stay calm. Oh no, about this time we began frantically yelling at each other what we thought we should do. I wanted to stick it out, I knew we were getting wet inside, but I figured we would get even more wet trying to retreat to the car. I also figured that if we got out our tent would be blown away. Robby on the other hand, was panicked because he did not feel safe remaining in the tent when there was lightning outside. (Oh yes, I forgot to tell you there was lightning!) (What I remember is not so much the lightning but the wind and cold water. The wind was hard enough that I was seriously concerned that there could be a tornado danger or that the tent would rip in half--which happened to a nearby tent a few years earlier during a similar storm. And sitting in cold water with strong winds on my back I was beginning to shake uncontrollably. At this point I didn't care what happened to the tent. I just wanted to get to some place where we could all be warm and dry.) Finally his pleas succeeded, and I agreed to take the kids to the car, but only after I collected our things.
Now imagine a dark tent, gale force winds rattling the sides as if they were going to rip apart, rain running in on one side puddling in cold pools on the ground, two frightened children, one panicked father, one frantic mother trying madly to collect the belongings that are strewn about the tent that she can't see because the flashlight is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND! No, this was not our best moment! (It wasn't the collecting of clothing and camping miscellanies that was the problem here. Gathering those wasn't actually a long process. What took the longest was Sharon's insistence that we ROLL UP THE SLEEPING BAGS. This struck me as ridiculous since they were already at least partially wet. If not, they would be by the time we got them to the car and tried to reorganize the trunk to fit them back in.)
I was finally able to collect everything and run out with the children in tow to the safety of the car while Robby sat stoically (sort of) in cold water holding the tent to keep it from blowing away. As quick as I tried to be, it was not long before I was soaked to the bone. I had to make two trips to collect everything except the sleeping bags (which had finally been abandoned). Once everything was in the car, I returned to the tent and tried to dash around it as quickly as I could to undo all the tent poles and clips. This was a hard task in the downpour as it was difficult to see and my hands kept slipping, but we figured it was the only way to keep the tent from flying away.
Once it was flattened, we retreated to the car as quickly as possible. (Robby didn't even take the time to put on his shoes or shirt. He was lucky to have pants on! (That's for sure!)) Robby jumped in the driver's side and I ran around to jump in the passenger side, but I had the inconvience of waiting for him to move the papers he had put in my seat (to this I will say, it seemed like he couldn't have moved any slower as I continued soaking in the storm). (It took me 2 1/2 seconds to move them. I think this was one of those moments where one, i.e., Sharon, sees the world in slow motion.) At last he moved everything, but then the door wouldn't open! It got stuck in that half-unlatched position. Okay, I admit it--I totally lost my cool at this point and began screaming like a banshee! All I wanted was to be in the car! It took Robby a moment to figure out why in the world I was still standing in the rain and screaming, no less. Finally he managed to save me after fumbling with the door to get it open. I can only imagine what the people in the tents nearby were thinking - if they could even hear me through the storm. (I doubt they could.)
Now you would probably think that sitting in the car soaking wet (Sharon's seat wouldn't dry out for two days) we would not be able to see the humor of the situation, but I must admit that we did find it amusing mostly because we knew we would NEVER forget this family vacation. Both of us were shivering pretty hard so we had to wait about five minutes till the heater warmed us enough for Robby to safely operate the car. (I was pretty cold.) Once our shivering subsided (luckily the kids were mostly dry) we drove to the lobby of the motel next door, but thanks to our luck (or lack thereof) it was closed. White City, New Mexico, is about as small a town as you can get. It pretty much consisted of the motel and a couple more buildings. We decided that we had no choice but to drive the 20 miles to the town of Carlsbad to see if we could find a place that was open.
By now it was about 3:30am and the rain and wind were still as hard as ever. We started our journey down the highway, but could hardly see the road so we turned back. (It was like a blizzard of rain.) Huddled soaking wet, we began wondering if we would have to spend the rest of the night in our car. About 15 or 20 minutes later the rain finally let up some and I told Robby we should probably start driving towards Carlsbad. We took the chance.
And do you think things could get any worse?... Here we are extremely wet, without a dry place to stay, driving carefully down a two-lane highway in a drenching downpour when five miles down the road Jenna throws up all over her shirt. Lovely! ... Poor girl! She started plaintively crying, "Shirt dirty!" I felt so bad, but it was still pouring down (it started raining pretty hard again partway to Carlsbad), and I couldn't really reach the supplies that we needed to clean her up, so we all sat for another 15 miles smelling that wonderful stench. (I was trying not to throw up, too!)
Our luck started getting better when we arrived in Carlsbad around 4:30am. With no shame I walked into the office of the Motel 6 completely drenched and looking like a radiantly beautiful wet rat that had just crawled out of a hole in the ground to ask for a room. I guess the woman there had pity on me because she offered her only room left. It was the handicapped room with one bed, but I didn't care, I just wanted a solid shelter where we could get out of the rain, dry off, and clean up. While standing there I tried to explain to the woman why I was soaking wet - you know, family campout that got rained out. She just slowly nodded her head and replied, "Oh, I understand...," as if she gets lots of soaking wet people in the middle of the night wandering in from nearby campgrounds.
Robby unloaded our things in the light rain at the end of the storm, and I started getting the kids cleaned up. Jenna was so happy to get a warm bath and clean shirt. While we were inside Robby was having one last little crisis! He lost my keys in the car! Finally he gave up looking and decided to come in. At about 5:30am we all happily crawled under snuggly dry covers exhausted from our adventure.
We slept till about 9am, and it took us a long time to get ready that next morning. At about 12:30pm we arrived at the campgrounds to survey the damage.
Here lies the remains of our tent and sleeping bags...
...sitting in a pool of water. (We were probably lucky the sleeping bags had stayed in the tent. Being thoroughly soaked they provided the weight needed to keep the tent in place.)
Notice the water pouring off the corner of the sleeping bag. That is an example of how wet everything was. (This picture was taken after the sleeping bag had been draining for a little bit.)On the bright side, we were able to lay everything out on picnic benches in the sun to dry as we took about 4 1/2 hours to visit the caverns, and by the time we got back they were almost completely dry (the wonders of low humidity) and we were able to pack up the sleeping bags (although they had plenty of bugs in them; I can see why the bats like to call this place home--there's plenty to eat) and continue our journey to Texas.
All I can say is this is one adventure we will NEVER forget. (You can say that again!)
1 comment:
Fabulous narrative! Thanks.
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