Today is tubing Tuesday at camp. I think tubing down the Brandywine River is my favorite activity this summer...well NOT ANYMORE. Not after today! We check the weather this morning and it said 50% t-storms at 2pm. We should be fine if we go tubing in the morning. Turns out those t-storms were moving ahead of schedule. and these weren't any t-storms these were SEVERE, end of the world like t-storms.
As we're floating down the river, 20 campers + 5 counselors, we manage to break off into 2 groups. Always happens because some like to go slow and others like to go fast. We start to feel some rain drops here and there and then whoosh! Complete down pour. No big deal. We were after all dressed to get wet. But then we hear some rumbles and that means everyone gets off the river. Rule is we got to wait 30 minutes from the last thunder boom till we can get back on the river. So our group waits around while the other group that was about a 1/4 mile behind us waits too. But the thunder isn't dying down its getting louder. Then we see lighting and the rule for lighting is that we got to wait an hour from the last lightning flash. Plus who wants to be near water when there's lighting. Yaa, time to go. Unfortunately we didn't have the camp cell phone, the other group did. We had a walkie talkie that ended up not being charged so we had nada communications for someone to pick us up.
I decided to go find the other group and tell them to use the phone. Keep in mind that its torrential down fall and now we're not just seeing flashed but we're seeing lightning bolts and the thunder was about to break my ear drums. Luckily there was a trail for me to use to go up river so I didn't have to be in the water. It was a trail full of stinging nettle and poison ivy. Awesome. As I'm running, what felt like for my LIFE, I can't find the other group! Turns out they were on the other side of the river. But then I see the other counselor with the phone pop out of the bushes like some jack-in-the-box. He had called the nature center and the van was comin to the rescue and the road wasn't too far. So I sprint back to the kids and other counselor to tell them to get the hell out of here! At one point I saw a bolt of lighting shoot across the sky over my head. My heart is pounding because I'm gonna get struck by lightning. But I had to keep my cool because we got 8-10 year old campers goin out of their mind.
I'm not sure which was scarier: walking around outside vulnerable during a storm or driving around in that 15 passenger van. We could hardly see out the window because of the rain, the van would hydroplane from time to time, we would unexpectedly hit giant puddles, branches were falling from the trees and it was only a matter of time before a tree fell onto the road.
All in all, we made it back soaking wet, a little shaken, but ALIVE. Woo! While I was driving home I did notice lots of debris and several trees that had fallen, some across the road so I had to find detours home. All the traffic lights were out. That's always fun. The weather said we got about 2.5 inches of rain in about an hour. We really were lucky that no one got hurt. As much as today sucked though, at least tomorrow will be fun. We'll be canoeing with much higher water! Hopefully no boats will get stuck on any shallow bottoms.
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