Utterly Meaningless

We were camping up the Blue Ridge mountains 5 or 6 year ago on Memorial Day weekend when a tremendous storm rolled through. We we caught out in town when it started, and when we got back to the tent we decided to wait it out in the truck. Two hours later it slowed just enough for a bathroom run and when we got in the tent it picked up up. Constant lightening and thunder for hours and hours. We probably should have stayed in the truck as I was up all night worrying about a tree coming down on us. The next morning we got up and saw that 75% of the sold out holiday weekend crowd had bugged out at some point during the night.

I’m not sure if we were brave or stupid.

Our last camping trip( 4 years ago) was w/ friends at Assateague island right on the beach just over the dune was the ocean. To get beach front we had to make the reservations in December.
We got hit w/ a Nor’easter( rare for early May so they say ) just like this one. Our tent ended up coming down on us as the wind lifted the tent pegs out of the sand at 2am. We ended up bunking down in our friend’s 4 person tent ( 4adults, 4 kids) We used the coolers & other stuff to weight our tent down to the sand so it wouldn’t blow away. Just as everyone fell back to sleep my dear daughter needed to use the potty & we were nowhere near the door. After that We just crawled into the truck for the rest of the night. I didn’t have the heart to wake everyone up again to get back in Our friends canopy for over the picnic table blew over a mile away. It was a complete loss all the aluminum poles bent & twisted. At daybreak we grabbed everything we could loaded up & went home.
A boyscout troop near us had a bad night too. Many of their tents fell down. One had two boys in it with their feet sticking out. I was quite concerned at first but their den mother assured me they were fine & just heavy sleepers. Both could be heard snoring as you passed by their tent.

Haven’t thought about camping since…..
Glad you are safe & sound. I do know what you went through.

We camped our way from the Mississippi Delta to the Black Hills of South Dakota. We experienced an unbelievable dry windstorm on the banks of the Missouri that bent the frame of our tent at 2 a.m., with us in it. We were camping in spitting distance of the very steep river bank, and I kept picturing us tumbling over….

Then there was the camping trip to the Ozarks in Arkansas when we were caught across the creek, against the side of an unclimbable mountain, in flash flooding caused by the most amazing thunderstorm I’ve ever seen, much less camped out under tall trees in. We evacuated at 2 a.m., just before water covered the little bridge. Another group (not with us) decided not to evacuate and was stranded there for days. Fortunately, they had all the food and water we abandoned and did fine. The hotel in Mountain View, Arkansas was not exactly first class, which was probably ok, since our friends had to take their canoe into the hotel room to keep it secure. Did I mention the flat tire?