Chamblee54

As some of you know, I like to go to get-togethers in the woods. Since the location tries to be low visibility, I will call it Mudville. When Mighty Casey struck out, there was no joy in Mudville. The gathering is usually held at the end of September, and first part of October. This year, it was moved up a week, to accommodate the full moon. If the gathering had been held when it usually is, the weather would have been glorious. As it was, it rained, and rained, and rained some more. I went on Sunday, and planned to stay for a week. By Wednesday, I had enough, and went home, with my tail between my legs. This was not the intention.
I get into gathering mode, and nothing is going to stop me. Having two rides cancel did not stop me. Seeing the weather radar, with Mudville covered with precipitation, did not stop me. The trip up was fairly smooth. The clouds did not cover the sun until going through a scary mountain pass. By the time I got off the interstate, the mud puddles by the roadside were too numerous to ignore. If I can have a couple of hours to set up my tent, cover it with a tarp, take my car to the parking lot, hike back, then I should be ok. As it happened, it was drizzling by the time I started back from parking. There were huge mud puddles in the road, with a skinny strip of dirt to walk through on the side.
By the time I got back to my tent, I was dog tired. There was a dance party after dinner. I thought I would be far enough away to sleep through it. Unfortunately, some DJ decided to crank up the volume, and I was back to listening to the rain fall on the tarp. “Loving is really my game” was great when Brainstorm did it in 1978. Hearing the redo, while trying to sleep, is another story.
Monday, I got up and went to the kitchen. I tried to busy myself by taking out compost, and sorting recyclables. These are never quite done jobs, that don’t take much time commitment. Later, I was spreading wood chips over the path leading back to my tent. This helps a little bit, but turns into more mud before long. It was not all work… there were some lovely people to spend time with. The food was plentiful and tasty. The rain slacked off for a while Monday, and the tarp was keeping the tent dry. Maybe things were going to turn out ok.
The last entry in my journal was tuesday morning. *1) wake up early, go to kitchen, talk to Lady, hopefully rain is through.* The lady in the kitchen was a “big ole butch farm girl” who reads college dissertations for fun. Sitting down to talk with her was an unexpected treat. The sun came out for a while Tuesday, and things were looking good. Then a huge storm came through. There was enough water on the ground to get between my ground cover, and the floor of my tent. There was enough water in the tent to be thourourgly miserable. I thought that maybe it would clear up, and I could dry out the sleeping bag enough to hang in.
Wednesday morning it was raining fairly heavily. The reports were for rain all day, and into thursday. I took a bucket of compost out, and my shoe sank four inches into compost yard mud.
I went back to my tent, and took everything down. Just get it all into bags, and sorts things out when you get home. I went to the house, and found someone going to the parking lot. After getting back to Mudville, I saw another person who had been looking for a ride to parking. When I was taking him to parking, I went into a huge mud puddle on the raod, hit the gas at the wrong time, and came very close to spinning off the road. I got out of Mudville, put on the dry clothes I was keeping in the car, and got on the interstate going home. The rain went away for most of the trip home.
I usually have pictures from Mudville, but this time never took the camera out of the tent. It stayed relatively dry, and still functions. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.