Let me preface this with a little addition to the first day events. Driving along on our way from St Louis to Oklahoma, I was enjoying a much needed break from driving in the passenger seat while Alia learned how to drive stick. Things were going well as she learned the ins and outs and found how easy it is to cruise on the highway. Unfortunately, the universe has been playing a little game with me for awhile, trying to see how many tiny straws it can pull before I lose my marbles. For example, I thought it was a great idea to get my car professionally cleaned since I will be living out of it for the next month and a half. However, upon the return of my car, the window buttons didn't work and the air vents smell like dead animals. Really great for 112 degree weather out here. Anyway. Back to relaxing, and BAM. A tiny little pebble can do a whole lot of damage when a car kicks it up. So upon our return to the campsite in Oklahoma, we have a little spider chip in the windshield of my car. We planned ahead on our way there and stopped for a fix it up kit. Since it was dark already the plan was to fix it the next morning.
Back to our night in Oklahoma. We set up our tent and blew up the air mattress. By hand let me add. Because why would I spend the extra $10 to make things easy? Alia was a champ and got it up in no time, but I definitely need to invest in an electric pump. We were not totally irresponsible. We DID check the weather. We were seeing little spots of lighting far off in the distant skies, but the weather said only a 20% chance of scattered thunderstorms for our area. I grew up in Tamaqua where I came to know "heat lightning" as a thing. So I was sure we would be ok. We were responsible campers. We were as prepared as we could be. We hung out under the stars, listened to the coyotes, I played my guitar as best I could, and we cozied up on our air mattress. Which by the way, take one when you go camping next. It's luxurious.
Unfortunately, we woke up to a storm that was definitely not heat lightning. Eyes open, lighting cracking, thunder booming. Immediately I was 100% certain that I was going to die in that tent in a 10 seconds it took me to wake up, jump up, and run to my car. We got to the car just in time. The hail started just about the same time as the rain. It was roughly the size of bouncy balls, some maybe a little bit bigger some smaller. A nice buffet of ice. We sat in my car in one of the worst lightning storms I think I've ever witnessed, waiting for hail to hit our spider crack at just the right place and shatter our only shelter. Neither one of us were sure what to do as we were deliriously sat stunned by the storm and the thought that we are right next to a giant Dam of water. Definitely a great place to be. So being the only ones on the campground, we needed to make move. We decided to drive around and see if there was a better spot to sit, as we watched our tent and air mattress blow away from under the trees they were nestled under.
There was nowhere on the campsite to go. Nor were there any office is open. However, we did find a man and his family exiting as we were waiting out the storm. Their tent snapped in half and their night of camping concluded. Eventually, the storm calmed enough for us to return to a flooded tent site and sleep through the rest of the lightning and rain in the car, my legs wrapped around the steering wheel, my hip pressed against the emergency brake, and my head leaning on I don't even know what in the passenger seat. Alia, curled up in the backseat with the chairs, extra food, and probably some bags or other bulky objects. This was our first night of camping. It was quite the adventure. I wish I could have managed to take a photograph of our sleeping situation, but it was too difficult to twist my body around to get the phone that I was sleeping on under the break lever.
The next morning, we woke up started cleaning up our flooded supplies. A ranger stopped by to take insurance pictures for the park and we discovered that we were camped out next to a tree that had gotten struck by lighting last month in a storm. Wonderful. I guess it's good that they say lightning doesn't strike the same spot twice. I think that might be a myth, but it didn't that night. Now time to fix our windshield and get to New Mexico.
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