the past few weeks have been a bit busy around here. so sunday, when there seemed to be a bit of calmness and settling down of things, we seized the opportunity to head out for a spontaneous family camping adventure. we chose a location that we've always wanted to try, a location right alongside the atlantic that is very condusive to living the life of a beach bum — no winding hiking trails, no mountain peaks to conquer, no canoeing or kayaking, just a nice sandy, flower lined trail, a few yards long that leads from your tent to the beach and back. seemed like a good plan...
we arrived. there were lots of open sites to choose from, being that it was a sunday and most schools around here are still in session. no sooner than our tent was set up and the sleeping bags were unpacked, a giant mass of dark clouds quickly came rolling in across the sky...
with the clouds, came a fast rain, thunder, wicked lightening bolts and winds that have been reported at the area's local coastguard of 55 knots (63.4 miles per hour)!! all we could do is take cover in our car and watch and hope that we wouldn't loose our gear to the crashing waves on the other side of the dunes and i suppose hope that we too wouldn't be blown away out to sea. oh, nature.
it all happened so fast. we're pretty sure we spent over two hours waiting it out in the car. luckily we had access to the cooler (which was fortunately packed with margaret's leftover birthday cake). and luckily margaret was happily entertained with a few rounds of word rhyming games. fat > cat. car > far. tent > bent.
the damage? a broken tent pole (boo!), no rips in the nylon (yay!) and a huge collection of puddles inside the flattened dome (big time boo!) the sleeping gear was just soaked. we took a walk on the beach, weighed our options, watched the storm moving off shore as quickly as it came, and then decided to pack it all up and head back home passing one uprooted tree after another — the whole way recounting our adventure as if we'd been gone for days and planning our next big outdoor outing of the season (with a fixed up tent pole of course) where we can once again truly submerge ourselves in nature, no matter what the conditions.