The trials of camping

Whenever you go on an extended camping trip, interesting stories are sure to abound.  This trip is no exception.

We begin our tales with Red Rock State Park in Northern California.  We got to this park late, after a sunset cruise through a ghost town that proved to have no camping available.  When we got there, the first thing we noticed was the wind.  It definitely existed!  It was so strong that it necessitated tying our tent to our car and using our food bins, etc to keep the ends on the ground.

Our second tale takes place in Western Colorado. That night, it rained so hard that we drove extra far to my aunt's house to get warm and dry.

Then, we stayed at Utah Lake State Park.  Here, the extraordinarily kind campsite host greeted us and chatted a bunch!  We got to learn about hosting, RV living, and her husband let us borrow his wrench.

Then, we went to Yellowstone.  That's when the stories get fun. First of all, there was a really nice lady named Barbara who checked us in.  She was from Florida and very nice.  She did say it was a bit cold for her though.
Barbara was right, it was a pretty cold night and we headed to bed.  When we woke up, there was snow on the ground.  The story is even better when you hear that we held a tarp on top of our tent (for better waterproofing) with ropes on either side to trees, and there was bear poo lining the tent on one half moon side.  Our theory is that the bear was checking out the place, got clothes-lined, walked to the other side, got clothes-lined again, and continued down the path to the bathroom, angry and pooing all the way.

Then, we come to Gillette, the land of happy oil drillers and laborers who have many a story to tell while doing laundry.  That night was a thunderstorm that sounded like warfare with lightening brighter than I've ever seen and wind that blew the sides of our tent. When we woke up, one of the guys down the way asked, "how did you girls do with the storm last night?"  Evidently, we come off as weak.

After Gillette, we headed to South Dakota.  South Dakota has a lot to offer and I was excited to camp.  However, in Gillette, we had heard about tornado warnings so decided to pay a bit of attention to the sky.  It was dark red... and crazy cloud formations that looked kinda like funnels were forming on the horizon.  We decided to get a hotel.  The next night, we camped in Cuter State Park and had a night reminiscent of Gillette.  Finally, the next night was our last straw.  We were in the beautiful Badlands (more stories to come!) and suddenly, while playing cards, this giant black cloud came screaming toward us... it was HUGE!   We jumped in the tent as it started caving in on us.  Judging the situation as unsafe, Suzanne suggested we go to the car.  She was smart.  We took the poles out and jumped in.  It was soooo wet!  After the lightening ceased being right on top of us, we grabbed all our items (thoroughly soaked), the remnants of our tent, and started driving east until we found a city for a hotel.  Our stuff wasn't dry until we got to Minneapolis and used a dryer.

The tent's a pretty geometric shape now too... the poles aren't straight and the seams are all torn a part.  It will be a fun trip home!

As I'm in Minneapolis, we have continued to have severe thunderstorms, tornado warnings, and flash flooding.  Thank goodness for friends!

This is good preparation for Guatemala storms!