Ticks and Torrents: All Part of the Camping Experience

Memorial Weekend has always traditionally been a time for my family to go camping. The past few years, I've missed out because I live half a country away, so I was thrilled when my sister, recently relocated a few hours away from me, enthusiastically agreed to have our own camping trip down here.

We met up Sunday morning at a state park and spent the day swimming, playing frisbee, and eating hotdogs. We looked and looked for the park ranger station so we could pay our tent fee, but this park was weird in that we couldn't find a station. "Oh well," we said, and hoped that no angry campers would show up at our camping spot, having paid for it!

My Sweetie and Me, catching some waves!

The sun went down, and instead the sky was lit up with a neat show of lightning far away. As Adam and I bedded down in our sweltering tent, Adam said, "I hope we get a little of that rain. It'd cool things down a bit!"

The next thing I know, I'm awakened by a CRASH! BANG! CRASH!!! and what appeared to be a strobe light party outside. Rain was coming down in torrents, falling so hard that it was penetrating right through our tent!

Somehow, we had managed to go camping on the one night in the entire week that a massive storm rolled through. Of course.

We huddled together in the tent for about an hour, hoping the storm would pass. The wind was blowing our tent flat, we were progressively getting wetter, and the thunder was crashing close by. Adam was really cute-- he was holding me close and (I found out later) trying to shield me in case a limb fell off the tree we were camped under. That's a comforting thought, for sure!

Finally, the storm let up just enough that we made a run for the van. And there we stayed for the entire night. I'm glad we never paid the tent fee, considering we never actually got to sleep in it!

We didn't stick around too long the next morning. We were beat! We were ready to go home! So we bid my sister adieu and spent the rest of the day sleeping.

A few hours later, I get this text from my sister:

"Ewwwwws, I just found two ticks on me... Make sure you check yourselves!!"

Thank goodness Memorial Day is once a year!