THE STORM OF THE CENTURY!

April 23 - Terrell to Log cabin TX - 55 miles

Rode in to the charming Texas town of Log Cabin and found the campground on Cedar Creek Lake. We picked a beautiful grassy spot amid the pine trees and looking out over the lake. We actually had our pick of spots because the campground doesn't officially open until May and also therefore there was no access to the showers but there were porta pottys available. We'd had a particularly hot sticky day of hill climbing and needed a shower and laundry desperately. So we decided to do both at the same time and take a refreshing swim in the lake with our clothes on. We changed in the porta potty and strung our clothes line between a couple of trees and hung our clothes out to dry. We set up camp and again had a "Root Hog or Die" night (which means root around and find whatever you can for dinner.) We were more tired than hungry and settled down for the night.

AGAIN after we'd been asleep for a while we heard a voice in the dark outside our tent wanting to know if we were going to be okay. A man who lives on the lake had seen us ride in and came to tell us that there was a big storm coming across the lake. "I'm not sure if you've camped out in a Texas storm before, but we want you to know you're welcome to come stay in our basement." We thanked him and told him we'd like to stay put and he said if we needed shelter later to come on over. He'd leave the basement unlocked for us. (WOW! Such kind and caring people!)

Just about the time he left the storm started with rumblings in a distance and a few rain drops. And then it kept building and building until we had truly impressive lightning and thunder just one to two seconds apart with rain coming down in buckets!! Thinking the storm wouldn't last long and would roll on through we waited it out being very cozy and dry in our faithful tent. But the storm kept raging with actually three phases passing over. After about two hours and around midnight we fell off to sleep.

Obviously we weren't expecting the storm or we wouldn't have camped out OR hung our laundry out to get wetter. The next morning the sky was clear and the clothes ling was sagging down from the very heavy wet clothing. While we were breaking camp the 13 year old son of the previous night's good Samaritan walked by to catch the school bus and said that he and his friend had gotten caught in a thunderstorm while camping out there and the tent was flipped over and they went running for home. He said they have lots of beds in their basement and we were welcome to stay.

Perhaps this is another one of those "You have to live to write it" experiences?