Camping

We went camping this weekend. After my exhausting, but successful Charleston Field trip with 210 participants, I unpacked my Charleston gear, and repacked for a wet weekend at the river. Little did I know it would not only be really wet--- but muddy and perhaps even a tad dangerous. I took the kids to my Mom's house, and went on my way to the woods right off the Congaree River. All the while stoms were headed their way. When i got there I was informed that we would have some storms and we did have a scanner that was picking up the Fire department's warnings. the first warning was a severe thunderstrom warning that was expected to pass just about 8 miles north of us. I wasn't thrilled aobut this especially sinxce they were forcasting hail, high winds, and torrential downpours. We scurried to put everything away and tie everything down that could be blown away. Only minutes later there were Tornado warnings. The warnings were several miles above where we were but it is still a frightening experience when you have notheing but an EZ up shelter keeping the elements off of you. There were 8 of us packed under this flimsey shelter, and I made sure Brad knew that I was not happy with the situation. it began to pour, and we kept a stick under the shelter to lift the top every two to three minutes because the water was collecting on the plastic. We sure didn't need the top to come down--- It was raining so hard we could hardly see in front of us. then it began to hail. It is not any kind of a picnic to be in the middle of a hail storm (which were the size of marbles) under a tent! The water was running quite quickly infront of the shelter, and the hail was coming down pretty hard. After it was all over--- I was relieved, and nothing blew away. In fact we had no wind damage at all. I can say the same for a few miles up the road. Trees were down, power was out and debis was all over the road. I think being in a gully down by the river was the safeset place we could have been under the given circumstances. We did discover one thing--- we had a hole in our tent, and everything we owned was soaked. Needless to say-- before we go camping next time, we will be getting a new tent.