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| Headed off to Paradise |
We embarked on a journey that was supposed to be amazing fun and relaxation a few weeks ago ... and there was some fun and relaxation ... but it was like a National Lampoon vacation ... I even asked the lemon man what karma train we pissed off ...
We were planning on leaving Thursday morning, but the lemon man wanted to leave Wednesday night ... we were thinking maybe we would stay in a hotel when we got to Ogallala, Nebraska, but that didn't work out ... when we got there the hotels were all full ... we had spent the entire day Wednesday shopping, packing the car and going to pick up the jet-ski we had rented for our trip at the lake ... we underestimated how long it would take to get there ... so as we pulled into our campsite after 11pm ... we set up camp in the dark ...
We had the two of us, my three kids, my oldest daughter's best friend, the lemon man's younger sister, who is fourteen and her best friend who was fifteen ... we were outnumbered by kids ... but I will tell you the younger they were ... the better behaved they were ... I might actually have to save some of my stories about the two teenagers for a future blog ... but needless to say ... I will not be taking them on vacation with me any time in the near future ... maybe when the lemon man's sister really is a grown up instead of being a self-entitled brat that thinks she is ... but not anytime soon ... and God, please, do not let my kids act like that ...
We got camp all set up ... it was almost 1am by the time we finished ... (at some point in time the driver's side door on the lemon man's truck broke) ... but we turned around and noticed the older girls had disappeared ... one of my kids tells me they went down to the water ... the lemon man goes to find them ... and he found them skinny dipping ... but then we all went down to see the water ... no swimsuits, just our clothes ... we just waded ... and found our way into our sleeping bags around 3am ...
The next morning we went to go put the jet-ski in the water ... it started ... ran for about thirty seconds and then died ... we spent the next two hours on the phone with the rental company trying various things to make it work ... none of them did ... finally we decided we had to drive the jet-ski into Ogallala to be repaired ... so we went back to camp ... told the older kids they were in charge ... and headed with two cars (my van with me and the dog and his truck with him and his bungee corded door, pulling the jet-ski) ... we get to Ogallala ... they spend two hours replacing spark plugs and say the jet-ski should run perfectly now ... then in a miracle they fix the truck door even though they're a boat repair place ... I leave the dog in the car ... with the air conditioning on and run in and pay (can anyone see what is going to happen here?) ... so, sure enough ... we come back out ... I had locked my keys in my running car ... I'm thinking maybe they can open it here ... but nope ... we wait on a locksmith ... while we're waiting I open my big mouth about how we didn't put the rain fly on our tent (which is a huge cabin tent with an open air top) and how we're lucky it didn't rain while we were getting the jet-ski fixed ... then the lemon man points out the storm clouds in the direction of our camp ... well shit ... so he leaves me to drive back to camp to try to save our tent ... the locksmith comes ... he laughs at me when I say "God bless you, you're my hero" ... I get back to camp ... just in time to see some of our friends that were going to meet us there driving away ... saying that we're under tornado warning ...
Yes ...
Tornado warning ...
I look around, I'm like no way, let me pull the weather up on my smart phone ... it doesn't say tornado warning ... I proudly announce this to the six scared underlings ... and then my phone starts going off ... I have this app ... Weatherbug ... and when my GPS is on it automatically gives me NWS warnings ... all of the sudden we're under Tornado Warning, Severe Thunderstorm Warning and Flash Flood Warning ... well fuck ... the lemon man is a huge weather nut and I have limited experience with tornadoes and knowing what to look for so we figure we'll wait it out ... there's no rain ... we know there's supposed to be rain ... if the hail starts ... well ... that's bad ... our closest "shelter" is the shower house about a mile down the road ... we tell the kids to be ready to run to the car, but to stay for now ... they get in their tents ... we stay outside to watch the clouds ... still no rain ... but there is this strange green tint ... again, well fuck ... all of the sudden the older girls' tent lifts off the ground with them inside it ... the lemon man starts yelling for everyone to run ... as they're all getting to the van ... I'm tying the girls' tents to a tree with a jump rope ... and then I run up there too ... we drive over to the shower house ...
There are a lot of people there ... the camp host actually asks us what we know ... seeing our smart phones in hand I suppose ... we told him ... we had read a tornado had touched down on the other side of the lake about four miles from where we were ... we stood there watching and then we saw the smoke ... off in the distance ... then we decided we had nothing better to do so lets drive toward it ... (I know we're sadistic, what of it?) ...
So, we get in the car and drive toward it ... up the road ... there was so much lightning we didn't need to guess how it started ... we watched the smoke and the firetrucks for a bit ... we would learn later the fire was the Otter Creek Fire and would go on to burn more than 60,000 acres just that night ... we piled back in the van and turned around only to be faced with another huge plume of smoke ...
This one right on the lake ... but on the opposite side (we would learn the name of this fire later too ... Eagle Canyon Hideaway Fire) ... the wind had died down ... the tornado warning was gone ... we headed back to camp ...
Our tent was half knocked down ... the older girls' tent was on its side and half under our sturdy canopy that didn't move ... and well, that dang jump rope had saved the other girls' tent ... so we spent some time cleaning up, setting things back up and getting ready for dinner ... as it was raining ash on us ... so day one was pretty much gone ... the kids had some fun out in the water while we were busy driving to Ogallala, getting the jet-ski repaired, waiting on locksmiths ... but then we had all had an interesting time driving off and away from tornadoes ... then toward fires ... then back toward other fires ... we watched the fire across the lake burn for most of the night ... friends joined us that night for some good conversation ... and they set up camp in the dark ... but we were exhausted ... and watching the fire burning across the lake ... and, well, probably not great company ... and that was just day one ...
To be continued ...
