I've opted to not share this experience on social networking sites in detail, as I'm not sure I want the head tilt and the superficial "aw!" kind of reaction. This is just the news on what happened recently and how we're dealing with it. Allow me to preface this with acknowledging that many others have had far worse experiences than we did, and I very much appreciate that, but this just did happen to us, and it sucked.
We were camping, performing and being cowboys recently at a semi-regional affair, and were blessed with much rain, first on Friday, when S.D. could not be there, but with our friends, LvG and CvG, we managed to keep things together. S.D. finally was able to join us on Friday night, and we had a fantastic dinner over the campfire of roasted tomatoes, curry chicken and spiced rice. Dinner and socializing after was a very pleasant affair, including much wine and a campfire with many of the other cowboys in attendance. We stayed up until about 1am, and toddled to bed, S.D. doing some camp tidying before he retired.
Where we were staying, it had rained all day Wednesday, then was dry-ish much of Thursday, but the ground never really dried out. Friday, there was rain, but we kept the tent and awning up, even though others lost much canvas in the wind and rain. The ground that was already saturated was even more so. We had a significant puddle in front of the tent, but as the afternoon ground on, it soaked into the soil.
As we were sitting about the campfire (already tired from the earlier storms, setting up camp the day before, and the necessity of being pleasant to many torons), we watched storms in the distance, but we were fairly certain it would not come to us, or should I say we were hopeful (but not optimistic).
We realized, about an hour after retiring, that we were, indeed, in the path of the storm, but it did not sound severe, and the wind was not terrible, so, listening to the pleasant sound of raindrops, we slept on.
Around 6am, I woke, and looked about. There was approximately 4" of water in the tent. Our tent was completely flooded! Our rugs were literally floating, and a stream was flowing through our tent! The first instinct was to get everything we could to high ground, on top of trunks was as good as we could do with that. With all the water, I realized my bladder was full, and went outside to use the loo. The loo was occupied, with a line (at 6am??), so, I had a chance to really wake up and notice what was going on. I was standing ankle deep in water, and more was coming down from the sky. At this point, S.D. came out of the tent and we both saw the larger picture.
We waded back into the tent, and the enormity of everything hit like a wall. A wet, multi-thousand dollar wall that couldn't be easily replaced. S.D. and I had our 5 minuted or so where I went into complete meltdown mode, to be honest, I have no idea what he was thinking or doing at the time. I managed to get somewhat dressed, brush teeth, and get my head together. S.D. pulled the truck up, and together (he was still in his pajamas) started to pack things up and get stuff into the trailer.
This is the point where I can honestly say we are so incredibly blessed to be associates of an organization that will truly pull together for members in time of need, and this is where I start the incredible thanking process for all the fantastic help they provided.
When our associates saw what was going on, without being asked, without prompting, they just started to help. Everything wet went into plastic garbage bags, everything still dry went into plastic garbage bags to stay dry. Camp was broken in record time, and S.D. even got to get his teeth brushed and someone found real pants for him!
I have never seen chaos in my camp gear like we now have, ever. Ever. Somehow, without a true plan, and the trunks (all wet) all empty, it all got loaded into the truck and trailer. At one point, when I was organizing the rugs in the back of the truck, I turned around, and S.D. had someone on each pole of the tent, carrying it to high ground! I hope to never see that wonder again. Not for the rest of my days.
We got on our way with no drama, and got home. Twice we skidded on the rain, about giving heart-attacks to both of us, but we got home. Once home, we got the truck unloaded, and the first of the laundry pile was in the machine, and the exposed stuff was taken care of. We had breakfast out, as neither one of us had the will or desire to cook (it was now 10am, like I said, record time, we were about 45 minutes from home, and also had unloaded part of the truck!!!), and we had whatever the hell we wanted for that breakfast.
When we got home, Miss C, an associate from our organization was there to meet us, to help with the continued unpacking, cleaning and drying process of salvaging camp. When there was nothing left to do but wait for the sun to work its magic, S.D. took the opportunity to clean the guns while Miss C took me out for some retail therapy.
The clean-up so far has been over 6 loads of laundry, there has been, and will be more, regluing of furniture pieces, drying rugs, and sanitizing them with Lysol. We are also having to oil all the leather, cleaned and dried all the guns, hand washed all the wool bedding, dried out the tent and awning, and will be restoring the furniture and polyurathaning all the feet up to 6" up the legs.
This week, LvG and CvG will be bringing our kitchen back, with all our dishes, prep tables, food baskets, and coolers. I am certain that will need the same treatment as above.
