One of the park’s caretakers gifted us a bottle of homemade strawberry wine after we set up camp yesterday; it was delicious, and we drank the entire thing and were passed out cold by 6pm. When we woke up, he also gave us a weather report: thunderstorms and high winds were expected all afternoon. Rather than spend the day racing the rain, we decided to zero and wait it out.
This was more painful than it should have been. Between the flooding and the warm temperatures, the mosquitoes and black flies were out in force. We attempted to take a stroll through the wreckage of the park and were nearly eaten alive, so we spent the bulk of the day in the tent in our underwear playing cards and listening to the bugs try to break through the walls. The population was large and aggressive enough that it sounded like it was pouring rain, and if you touched the tent walls they would bite you THROUGH it. This was especially delightful given that the temperature was about 80 degrees and that special kind of hellish humidity you get right before a nightmarish thunderstorm.
And nightmarish the thunderstorm was! For a moment we didn’t realize the sound of the mosquitoes ramming themselves into our rain fly had actually become rain, but within moments the wind was howling and the skies had gone dark. We spent the rest of the afternoon huddled in the tent as it attempted to rip free from its moorings and the rain and thunder made normal conversation impossible.