First Camping Trip of the Season!

Jeff emailed me from work Friday, saying that he wanted to go camping TONIGHT! So we packed our bags and headed out. I checked the weather prior to us leaving only a 40% chance of rain, but here in IN, it always is raining so no big deal.

We drove to Shades State Park, a few miles north of Turkey Run State Park (a favorite of ours)..deciding to try something new. The weather was nice and we were excited for tomorrows planned day of hiking and swimming.

When we were paying for our campsite, the ranger let us know that the forecast was for some heavy showers.... but while we were setting up camp they let us know that we had moved into a Tornado Warning....just our luck.

So we set up camp in the van, and prepared dinner. I was standing outside of the van when almost instantly it went dark.. (its only 5:30 pm/ felt like 9).... and then the rain came. IT CAME!!! Branches were falling all around the van, we were safe inside and still we were amazed at the power of the storm. When it calmed into JUST pouring rain (lighting/thunder ceased) Jeff braved it and cooked our hamburgers under the trusty umbrella.

By then we had all put swimsuits under our clothes since we knew that anytime we left the van we'd get soaking wet. The kids loved the puddles, and then the storm picked up again. Dessert was cooked, from the back of the van as well... this time we sat inside and had a long stick to reach the stove and cook our marshmallow....didn't really work too well. :(

Anyways, we watched movies in the car and didn't sleep much, it rained and thundered the whole night. Everyone was up by 7:30 thanks to Ben, and we quickly decided that if the rain wasn't going to leave, we should.

Scratch breakfast, we'd find something in Crawfordsville on our way out. While leaving we saw lots of trees that had broken in 1/2 or lost major branches in the storm. 3 times we had to cross water covered roads.... which lead to our next adventure.

The water was soo deep that it flooded our spare tire cover and bent it... we could hear something driving, and when we pulled over saw the mangled plastic. A trip to a tire shop, lead us to some wonderful mechanics willing to help us out. Walmart provided doughnuts for breakfast and we finally made it home at 11:30.

So there you go our first camping trip. It wasn't the best we've had, but it was interesting. Too bad Ben was afraid of the thunder!