Gosh, I look so good in pink.  So does my family.  In fact, we are all covered, head-to-toe in pink right now—pink calamine lotion that is!  The reason for the calamine covering is we just completed the fourth annual Dubin and Friends Camping Extravaganza.  And anyone who was lucky enough to attend the trip received a minimum of 53 mosquito bites per person.  (And one of the campers who bragged that mosquitoes never bite him, wound up with chigger bites instead!)  Luckily, the fun didn’t end there.  In fact, mass biting and itching was the least of anyone’s problems this year.

Now, I am truly the least outdoorsy person on the planet, and not really camping material, but I actually look forward to the fun memories our yearly trip provides.  Anyone who knows me is always shocked that I go camping.   Just last week, my friend Maura said, “Susan, I can’t believe YOU go camping.  You won’t even touch a stuffed animal at the library because it looks a little dirty!”

Anyway, this year’s camping trip started out great.  The weather was perfect and eight fabulous families happily set up tents on our group campsite.  The weather forecast had called for a 20 percent chance of rain both days and both nights with the rain lasting up to 1 hour each time and precipitation of only .05 up to a tenth of an inch each time.  And as much as I did not want to camp in the rain, that forecast wasn’t particularly frightening so it didn’t seem like any big deal.

We had a blast that first night—dinner by the campfire, s’mores, hanging out, etc.  Everything seemed perfect.  Then, at precisely 5:00 am, heavy rain came pouring down followed by loads of thunder and lightning.  It kept getting worse so my husband, Bill, turned on his weather radio.  “Seek shelter in a sturdy building immediately,” it said.  Yikes!  This was definitely not my idea of fun!

Right away, we woke up our son, Andrew, along with everyone at our campsite and headed for the shower building.  A bunch of us hung out in one of the stalls, with some of our mosquito friends and a random green onion on the floor, for almost two hours.  When we were able to return to our site, the torrential downpour continued for another 3 hours.  (We found out later that 1.25 inches of rain had fallen.)

Once the monsoon stopped, the kids amused themselves in puddles and the adults assessed their tents.  Two families had only planned to stay one night, two families had large leaks in their tents and one family was freaked out from the rain so all of those people packed up and left later that afternoon.  That left The Dubins and two other brave families to ponder whether or not we were going to stay one more night.

We hemmed and hawed for quite some time.  Word for word, this was the weather forecast: “50 percent chance of storms overnight lasting less than 1 hour.  Precipitation up to .05 to .10 of an inch.  Storms are not expected to be severe.”  Additionally, the campground weatherboard at the check-in station said it would be clear for the next 24 hours.

With that in mind, we decided to stay the night.  I mean, it couldn’t get any worse than yesterday, right?  Who cared if it rained a teensy tiny bit more?  I was seriously like a professional camper by now!  So we sat by the fire, hung out again, gazed at the stars and had another beautiful evening.  I was totally looking forward to a relaxing sleep.

At bedtime, I realized my pillow was extremely musty-smelling from the rain the night before—eeew!  It was disgusting!  Next, my ankles were on fire and itching like crazy from the countless mosquito bites I had accumulated.  And it was like 1000 degrees in the tent!  How was I supposed to sleep?  Why was I camping?  Then, at 11:45 pm, the lightning started.

At first, I convinced myself it was just the beautiful glow from the campfire.  Then I heard grumblings of thunder.  “Maybe it will totally pass us,” I thought.  “Maybe it just seems closer because we are outside.  Maybe it won’t even rain.”  Bill and Andrew seemed like they were sound asleep.  I was already terrified so I put my sleeping bag over my head and my smelly pillow so I couldn’t see the lightening. 

At about 1:15 am, a deluge of rain began and the storm from the day before seemed like a mere trickle compared to what we were about to experience.  The rain, thunder and lightening became so severe and scary; my family and another friend’s family decided to seek shelter in our vehicles.  Our other friend, Minerva, decided to stay in her tent because her kids were sound asleep and she figured the storm would probably be over soon.

Unbelievably, the lightning and thunder grew even worse and there was no sign of letting up.  There was no way Minerva’s kids could be sleeping anymore and we were sure they were all terrified in their tent. 

Suddenly, Bill’s weather radio said there was “slight rotation” spotted.  Bill and I looked at each other and screamed, “We have to save Minerva and her kids!” 

The rescue mission was truly like out of a movie or something!  In the middle of the lightning storm, Bill carefully drove his beloved pick-up truck over the cement parking barrier and skillfully maneuvered his way through 12 picnic tables, 2 fire pits, 3 tents, 1 gazebo, several huge rocks and countless large trees.  He literally drove right up to the tent. (Which was probably a little scary for the people sitting inside the tent!)  Minerva peered out the tent window with massive relief in her eyes while Bill screamed, “Get in!”

They all ran in to the truck and we all laughed at our situation.  At 3:00 am the park ranger drove by to ask if there were any down trees or branches on our site because there were a few in the road.  She said they had not expected this storm at all and were really taken by surprise.  She also said we could stay where we were or leave the site but both were at our own risk.  Obviously, she did not provide much help!  We ended up staying where we were so as not to drive in such dangerous conditions.

By 3:30 am we felt everyone needed some sleep, so Bill took a few sleeping bags and laid it in the bed of the truck for Andrew and Minerva’s two kids.  Then, Minerva stretched out in the back seat while Bill and I fully reclined the driver’s and passenger’s seats.

Once again, I was wide awake while everyone slept.  All I kept thinking was, “My book is in my tent, I’m boiling in this car and I’m getting majorly claustrophobic.”

Finally, around 7:00 am, the storm completely cleared up and it was a beautiful and sunny day.  We cooked a great breakfast, packed up our wet belongings and exhaustedly and itchely drove home.

To me, camping still doesn’t make sense.  It took us months to plan this trip, days to pack and hours to load the truck, unload the truck, set up our site, take everything down, pack the truck again and then unpack at home.  And this was just so we could “rough-it” for two nights.  Not that I wanted to stay one moment longer than that but it seems like so much work for such a short time. 

The crazy part is we all still had an incredible time.  And, as funny as it sounds, I look forward to our new adventures and memories next year.  (Although we all agreed to never go again if there’s ever even the slightest amount of rain in the forecast!)  To contact me about future columns email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .