On Rain

 

Once, many years ago, a young student and his adventuresome wife set off, without benefit of the Weather Channel, to canoe a sizable chunk of the   Current River in Missouri.  On the third night of  5, a Gulf Hurricane whose name is  long forgotten decided to break up over the Midwest.  The Rain began in late afternoon as our adventurers set up their tent on a gravel bar across from Big Springs State Park.  The adventurers felt vastly superior to the car campers on the far bank and hardly missed them when they packed up and vanished.

Dinner was good, the tent reasonably tight for canvas and the male adventurer felt the company was beyond compare.  It was a dark and stormy night and a long  grey day.  The male adventurer felt the pleasures of the tiny two person tent were beyond compare and they made merry with cold food and warm love.  The adventuresome wife requested the canoe be brought to higher ground twice that day and ran a flashlight beam over the gleaming aluminum keel more than a few times through the night.

The next morning dawned raining.  Procedures for ferrying a canoe across swift water were reviewed, assurances of  lasting love were exchanged and, with a haughty air of total confidence, they launched and landed and dragged the soaking gear to the campground laundry building.  There they sat for most of another day while phone lines to the park were repaired and a message could be sent to the kind gentleman who had agreed to carry them back to the starting place. 

We tell this tale for comparison to a long and kinda drizzly day spent today in an Airstream with an electric hookup.  Hot Coffee and tea, Pancakes with fresh strawberries and whipped cream, computer time, warm glow of  incandescent lamps, heat from multiple sources, reading and some planning followed by another light meal and it’s time to turn on the electric heating blanket.  The Adventuresome wife still shone a warm beam over the shiny aluminum and the male adventurer felt the company was beyond compare.