Hurricane Theodore

So we were staying in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Mind you, this is the Park Service, so everything is ridiculously overpriced, as per the $150 fee we had to pay to enter the park and spend the night. Oh, and let's not forget that despite the massive fee, the Park Service was not about to do us any favors. Case in point: they warn us about the bison since bison are pretty freaked out when it comes to runners and cyclists. But when we proceed to ride down the road to the campsite, we come across a masive heard with calves. We call the Park Service to come and help us out a little (I'm paying $150 to stay here, you asses) by driving through, thus clearing the road. Does this happen? Of course not. We're told to wait.

Okay, so that night I'm sleeping in my gerry-rigged tent because the administration can't stand to spend money even on the stuff we need. We don't even have tent stakes; we had to use our utensils to secure the tents down. WE HAD TO TAKE THE THINGS WE USE TO EAT AND PUT THEM IN THE GROUND FOR THESE TENTS. Then there are missing tent poles and rain flies, but whetever, we went with it.

So that night I go to bed with J-Muf and Pen. We didn't ut our rainfly on because it was going to be hot and we pretty much knew that if it rained, we were pretty much screwed, rain fly or no. Next thing I know, it's 3 a.m. and I wake up to hear the sounds of Anson and J-Muf attempting to put the rain fly on. It's windy and I can see the lightning flashes through the tent. Then comes the patter of rain. Then I look out the window of the tent. I was met with the funniest sight I may have seen yet on this trip. Every tent within sight is literally being flattened by the wind. When the lightning flashes (every other second), you can just see the rain coming down. It was something out of a movie. And just the futility of that moment made me laugh, so hard.

Later, I heard an account from Maki, who had slept in the van. Around 3:15 she woke up with the other people inside and decided to go out to see if the tent campers were ok. All they could hear above the wind was the sound of my hysterical laughter.

J-muf re-enters the tent and meanwhile Pen starts holding town the stakes because the tent is in fear of collapsing at this point. Pen starts screaming wildly, "We've got to stay! We're not going to the bathroom (several hundred feet away, where I'm sure about half the group was sheltered at this point)." Then I looked out the window again to see tree branches start falling. That was when I heard Jessie, several tents away yell, "Tornado!" I thought, "We are going to die if we stay in this tent." Then I started laughing some more.

Finally, I hear over wind Joy's voice yelling, "Everyone to the bathroom!" So the guys in the tent and I gathered up everything we could carry and made a mad dash toward the restroom. We made it inside to find about 20 others. In a flurry of excitment, we began recounting all that had gone on in our perspective tents and also wondering about the other 10. Reed however had other things on his mind. Silent the entire time, Reed said during a conversation lull, "I wonder what the buffalo do." Are you kidding me? There are soaking people crammed in a bathroom at 3:30 in the morning, and you have THAT on your mind? Who cares what the buffalo are doing, they deal with this all the time; they have shelter by the rocks for goodness sake.

So eventually the group split up and some, including myself, went around the building to the men's restroom. There, we spread out a tent and some thermarests on the floor and got some sleep. Surprisingly, depite the fact that my head was on the bare, dirty floor and that I was about 6 inches away from Craig's butt, I got really good sleep.

At 6:30 we were awoken and began to survey the damage. Only one tent still stood. They looked like fallen, bloody soldiers as they lay on the plain in small lakes of water. Branches were everywhere. Most stuff fortunately had been put in the trailer the night before and Anson and friends had made a point to put the bikes under the awning of the restroom before the storm set in.

My favorite part was when the Park Ranger came out. He literally got out of his car, proceeded to check on the RV (because yeah, I'm sure THEY had a trying night in their portable house), say to us, "Rough night, huh?", and get back in his car to drive off. I will abstain from making any further comments about the Park Service; the use of expletives would not be appropriate.

But everyone was in a great mood and a lot of laughs were shared over our feeble breakfast of cold cereal.

Favorite quotes:

"We just spent the most money we've ever spent on accomodations this trip and Shawn slept face down next to a urinal." -unknown

"Tornado!" -Jessie

"Well that certainly wasn't the first time I've woken up half-naked next to a toilet." -Christopher

"I opened the door and literally the only thing I could hear over the wind was your laughter." -Maki