Woman vs. Nature

Lowman, ID

“I should probably take down my tent.”

I felt a small, slight pull in my stomach as very distant thunder rumbled.

That was intuition.

What follows is a story about the consequences of not trusting your intuition.

It happens in a fraction of a second.

The gut feeling.

And then comes our lovely friend, the brain, rationalizing and logicizing that which can not be made rational or logical, because intuition is something else entirely.

It’s like our little magical power.

It happened again.

Looking back, I’m positive this one was Mats.

Take down your tent and sleep in your car tonight.

And again, I started thinking instead of trusting.

The thunder was so faint, it was probably fine.

It would probably go around my location.

If it didn’t, it’d probably be just minor rain and that might be nice to fall asleep to in a tent.

Wrong.

Wrong.

And…very wrong.

Things escalated. Quickly.

I was laying in my tent after the best afternoon nap when I heard the first few raindrops, following that far off thunder.

Me being me and contentedly embracing the moment, I started taking reference photos of the raindrops on the tent to paint sometime in the future.

The sprinkle turned into a steady rain.

I put my phone down and listened.

The steady rain turned into a downpour.

I sat up.

The wind picked up.

Okay. Now I’m paying attention.

This was turning into a combination I was not super excited to see.

About the time the wind gusts kicked in, so did the hail.

All within seconds.

Rain, I was fine with.

Hail was even alright, because I know it’s usually short lived.

Both of those AND whipping wind?

AND thunder which means lightening while I’m in a paper thin shelter held together by metal poles?

I think I even said it out loud.

I might be fucked.

At this point, I was squatting in my tent, holding onto the sides to keep it as stable as possible in that wind to prevent tearing..because this is one of my two shelters.

It hits different, thinking of it like that.

It’s one thing when you’re weekend camping and can just get a new one or go home to your house and be okay. It’s a much bigger deal when you’re out there, 3000 miles away from any family and friends and this is what you have to live in. In this case, you protect your essentials.

So.

I’m crouched there like the little forest gremlin I’ve become trying to wait the storm out, holding onto these metal rods and praying I don’t get lifted by lightening..

and I looked down.

Water.

Those wonderfully finicky rain flies.. they love to leave that small gap of screen uncovered.

The water was pooling in.

I was surrounded by sleeping bags, my pillow, art supplies, etc. and I realized this situation was literally only getting worse and I needed to figure something out.

Now.

I came to my senses enough to start calculating.

I needed this wind to die down or at least hold off for two seconds so I could hop out and put some of my stuff in my car without the risk of the tent being carried away.

Magically..it happened a few seconds later.

And I jumped out.

Into shin deep water.

At this point I almost just laughed.

This just kept getting better, it seemed.

I was not cocky enough to ask anything along the lines of “what else ya got?”

I’m no idiot.

At least the hail had stopped, even if it was still pouring and I was wading through the river that was running down my campsite.

Minor.

I threw my bedding in my trunk and realized the wind was still calm enough that it was now or never.

I disassembled that tent faster than I’ve ever done in my life.

Where do you put a water filled, muddy tent when you live in a car so full you don’t even have room for a passenger?

Anywhere you can, and fast.

I got in my car, soaked, muddy, but safe from the elements.

And honest to god, all I could do was laugh.

It was 7pm and I put my car in drive and laughed my way out of that friggin place.

No idea where I was headed, no idea where I was gonna sleep that night, but knowing a sign when I saw one.

24 hours earlier

A lesson learned.

Follow your instincts.

My gut tried to help me.

Mats tried to help me.

But I thought I knew better.

Wrong, and humbled.

As the saying goes, if you’re gonna be stupid you better be tough.

Until the next (hopefully dry) adventure.

With love,

Me, Mats, & Duke