To the East a rosy dawn, birds chirping to each other’s delight. A rooster off in the distance heralds the morn and a whippoorwill plays tag with the early sounds. So peaceful now, unlike last night… We know it is coming, a large dangerous storm scheduled to hit in the night. We feel lucky to be able to sleep beneath a pavilion in a park, some shelter from harm. A kind woman approaches and warns us not to sleep here,” It floods badly, see the drains there”. Sure enough, every side of the pavilion has built in drains… Our only choice is to pitch tent in the nearby field. We pick our own spots, some high, some low. with a gentle 4 degree grade throughout the park. I find a middling plot near on old oak tree.”What if the branches break during the storm?”

” I think I”ll risk it for a little more protection tonight.”

My tent is set up and my things inside, it darkens, and now we wait. I check my smart phone and the radars shows a massive summer storm just a few hours away. Green bands surround yellow, orange and crimson red…this will.be a bad one, no doubt. I am so tired from the ride I fall asleep for two hours and wake to the patter of rain. I check my radar again and the yellow and orange are not far behind. The wind picks up, my tent billows from side to side and I say a silent prayer that my stakes will hold true. The lightening starts, thunder crashes around, and the rain starts pouring down. I sit with a small flashlight in hand but who needs it, the sky is bright with streaking bolt after bolt thrown down.

” I think I can, I think I can, I think I can”…my tent has come to life.

Harder and harder blows the storm, the rain now pounding down. Flashes of lightening so close the sky shines though the fabric of the tent, two layers thick, one for airflow, the second for the rain. Bright blue and orange above me, two or three millimeters thick protecting me from the storm…

Two or three millimeters thick…

“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can”…

The wind worsens and I wonder if I will blow off like some bubble play home full of children, something I saw on the news this year… I touch the sides walls buffeted by shifting winds…still dry… I try to hold the thin metal rods which brace the tent in place but they are on the other side of one layer of cloth…there is no way for me to help…

“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can”…

The thin wall at my foot now is curled back back by the howls and force of the wind. Water starts to seep in, from horizontal rain. Though the small up turned slit I see bolt after bolt flash across the sky, thunder keeps crashes around. I can do nothing but wait…I check the radar on my phone, we are now in crimson red. Three walls of the tent seem dry, the brunt hitting from the Northwest. I decide I had best try to bail some water to protect my things. Out come my orange riding socks and I begin to mop, and mop,and mop…

The wind is blasting , the rain pounding, bolts crashing , tent billowing and I am bailing and bailing with soaked orange socks. I wring them out over and over again out the Southeast flap.

” I think I can, I think I can, I think I can”…

After an hour or two the storm abates and then there is calm, a gentle patter of rain. I dare to go outside and check the stakes, all have held. Below me are tents in 4 inches of rain, the park now a lake… I look down at my small tent and am in shock at what I have just gone through.

My little tent sighs…” I know I can, I know I can, I know I can”…