Storm of the Summer!

One night I woke up to a thunderstorm raging over the camp. I would doze as it moved back out over the ocean and would wake up as the ocean pushed it back up against the camp. The flashes of lightening coming through the bedroom window were almost continuous and the rolling thunder sounded like a constantly grumbling stomach.

Suddenly, there was a crack of thunder unlike I have ever heard in my entire life. I curled into a ball and covered my head with my arms against the debris that I was sure was about to rain down on my head. After remaining frozen in that position for what seemed like hours (in reality it was probably only about 1 minute), I gradually realized that our cabin was still intact. I began to the process of convincing by body that it was indeed safe to uncurl and quickly counted all of my fingers and toes. After ensuring that I, as well as our cabin was indeed intact, I looked at Tim (who was also wide-eyed and awake) and said, "You should probably go see what's on fire.” After a brief argument, we agreed to BOTH go see what building had exploded.

We crept out to the living room and peered through the mini blinds looking for that telltale orange glow. Much to our immediate surprise the shower building directly beside our cabin appeared to be completely intact, as did the lodge and all of the cabins at the top of the hill. While we couldn't see the boys' cabins behind our cottage, we decided that if one had been struck, the cabin leader from the other would have come to get us by then. Relieved that we were not going to have to call 911, we faced the inevitable fact that we were not going to bed any time in the near future! We pulled up the blinds and each wrapped in a blanket on our big comfy chairs to enjoy the show. Only once have I seen the lightening light up the sky as many times as it did that night, but then we watched from across the lake, not the middle of the storm.

As the lightening snaked down toward the camp, we speculated on which ones struck trees (or the ground) and which ones missed and tried to figure out where the lightening struck that so abruptly woke us up; if not the shower building, perhaps the pool again? We also watched a few brave souls make mad dashes to the bathroom through the torrential rain (ask Darrell about his adventure) and thanked God for the foresight of the board to include a bathroom inside our cottage.