We are camped at Beed's Lake in northern Iowa, primarily to attend a memorial service Saturday morning for one of my classmates. Since others are in town for this, we decided to have a cookout last night. Beed's Lake was an important part of our growing up years. The forecast swung from perfect weather to afternoon showers in the preceding days but we would take our chances. The day dawned cloudy, but the sun came out and it looked like the only chance of rain was around 4:00. No problem. But as midafternoon approached, showers were popping up all around to the northwest of us. For two hours we watched the radar on three different sites and went from "Those showers are probably going to miss us" to "Those could go around us" to "No way that mess is not going to hit here."
We put the lawn chairs away, were encouraged by the direction of the storms, got them back out, checked the radar, and put them away again. We rolled the awning up. Butch hesitated to start the fire because the green and yellow blobs connected up and turned orange and red. A severe weather alert issued for the area included hail and strong winds. We messaged our guests and said "This doesn't look good." We considered aborting the mission and meeting in town for supper. But I had a lot of potato salad. Joe wrote back "10% chance of rain at 7:00 and 8:00, 0% at 9:00." We told them to come ahead and opened the awning back up.
Butch started the fire and the sky dropped a few sprinkles. We wiped the table and moved the chairs. The sprinkles quit. We continued our cooking preparations and Mother Nature shook her finger at us, sending a few more sprinkles. We persisted. The burgers and brats got done and we got the rest of the food out. A few more drops of rain as we dished up and dried off the table again. The clouds began to move out as we sat down to eat, my menu much enhanced by Carole's deviled eggs and Connie's brownies. By the time we finished, a few clouds drifted across a beautiful full moon and the warmth of the campfire started to feel good. Camping is so relaxing.
We put the lawn chairs away, were encouraged by the direction of the storms, got them back out, checked the radar, and put them away again. We rolled the awning up. Butch hesitated to start the fire because the green and yellow blobs connected up and turned orange and red. A severe weather alert issued for the area included hail and strong winds. We messaged our guests and said "This doesn't look good." We considered aborting the mission and meeting in town for supper. But I had a lot of potato salad. Joe wrote back "10% chance of rain at 7:00 and 8:00, 0% at 9:00." We told them to come ahead and opened the awning back up.
Butch started the fire and the sky dropped a few sprinkles. We wiped the table and moved the chairs. The sprinkles quit. We continued our cooking preparations and Mother Nature shook her finger at us, sending a few more sprinkles. We persisted. The burgers and brats got done and we got the rest of the food out. A few more drops of rain as we dished up and dried off the table again. The clouds began to move out as we sat down to eat, my menu much enhanced by Carole's deviled eggs and Connie's brownies. By the time we finished, a few clouds drifted across a beautiful full moon and the warmth of the campfire started to feel good. Camping is so relaxing.
RSS Feed