rain

Out of the Rain and into…More Rain

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Day 20: 6/21/24
From: Garretson, SD (Palisades State Park)
To: Fort Atkinson, WI
Distance: 469 miles

I wake after 4 hours of sleep and see a message that came through on my phone an hour or so after we left the campground. (I should still be sleeping right now, I’m exhausted, but my body says no, apparently. Adrenaline memory?)

We made the right decision.

Now, we just need to go back this morning and find out if we still have a tent and clothes to collect or if it’s all been washed away… We eat breakfast at the hotel, take showers we weren’t expecting to have this morning, and get dressed in the clothes we came in. Then, it’s back to the campground to see if we still have a tent, sleeping bags, and clothing. I know I said we were done camping after this night and that I looked forward to a few days in a hotel, but I didn’t mean I wanted to give up all of our tenting supplies for the future.

By the light of day, we can see the creeks and rivers in the area are absolutely flooded. The rain is still coming down, though with less force.The roadways back into the campground are passable, including the bridge that was flooded last night. (Though it’s covered in debris.) We get back to our campsite and are shocked to find most of the runoff creek water has subsided off the site, though it’s still flowing swiftly and carrying a lot of water into Split Rock Creek. Most importantly, though? Our tent is still standing. And everything in it is (mostly) dry. The tent is actually fairly soaked through from all the rain, but we don’t think the floodwater ever came all the way to the tent. We pack up as quickly as possible since the current forecast calls for more heavy rain and even the possibility of isolated tornadoes. No thank you. We’re ready to leave.

The GPS takes us a strange route  back to I-90 (dirt roads that are called “streets” and “avenues” despite being dirt), which we can only assume is due to closed, flooded roadways. And we must be right. Because when we finally do make it back to I-90, we see more devastation. Every creek (and there are many) is flooded so far over its banks, it looks like a full-blown river. Have you ever seen a tractor trailer on its side in the middle of a river? As of today, we have. We pass several more accidents due to flooded roads. As a result, the westbound side of I-90 is shut down, but the eastbound side remains open. We are grateful for that at least. 

But the rain isn’t finished with us yet. Husband drives through alternating downpours and light rain for the next two hours. We finally drive out of it, only to drive back into it again an hour later when I’m driving. We are absolutely astounded that a storm this big can be dumping this much water for this long. And it continues for most of our way to Wisconsin. The skies are dark and dangerous and I miss the Pennsylvania mountains that break up this kind of weather so it never lasts so long. We marvel again and again that we’re still driving through this horrible weather.

We finally reach our hotel not far outside of Madison, WI and we are relieved to be off the road. (And the hotel has the sweetest antique tap bell I want to grab for an uncle who collects them… I refrain. Barely.) The last 24 hours have been quite the ordeal. We still have a few more days and one more destination before we head back to Pennsylvania, but I think it’s safe to say that as much as the last three weeks have been an incredible adventure, we’re looking forward to returning home.

We watch a little television, I catch up on the blog, and Husband and kids take off for the jacuzzi for a half hour before bed while I read. I don’t know where they all find the energy to hop in a hot tub at 10 pm, but this trip is about seeing and doing, so have at it, fam.

Palisades State Monsoon

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Day 19: 6/20/24
From: Badlands National Park, SD (Cedar Pass Campground)
To: Garretson, SD (Palisades State Park)
Distance: 290 miles 

We “sleep in” today. Though we wake often in the tent, we manage to ignore the daylight until 8:30. It’s been raining on and off all night, too, but the tent has held up well. Fog covers the rugged peaks in the Badlands and we’re supposed to hit significant storms on the way east today. It’s going to be a tedious 4-5 hours on the road, especially with the incessant wind.

We pack up camp and head out to the gift shop, which has a diner where we expected to eat breakfast, but neither kid wants anything on the menu, so we leave with the intention of stopping somewhere else along the way.

We make a quick detour to a prairie dog “ranch” we saw when we came into the park, where we proceed to watch the critters poking their heads out and running around. You can buy peanuts in the store to feed them, which is probably why they are so tame and easily photographed.

There’s just one problem with relying on our own plans for breakfast. There’s nothing “along the way.” We end up at two different gas stations, both insanely busy. Is Summer Solstice a holiday in South Dakota? It certainly seems like everyone is out today. By the time we get any sort of food, it’s noon. Breakfast was basically yogurt and pastries. No one is complaining. (Lies. Husband is complaining. He wants eggs and bacon and something significant in his stomach.)

The next two hours on the road are some of the scariest. Lightning, thunder, wind, and heavy rain abound. We pass one car stuck in the middle of the grass that divides the highway. They must have spun out with all the water on the road. I’m getting worried that our campsite might be flooded out. When I check the weather forecast, there’s areal flood watches over the entire county.

I was looking forward to seeing this today, but I’m pretty sure that’s not happening. The weather on this trip continues to be wild.

When we reach the campground, there’s a small break in the rain. It lightens just long enough for us to set up the tent if we move at light speed. We get everything inside just in time for the next round of pouring rain. Split Rock Creek is roaring pretty good and I’m a little disappointed. I picked this site specifically because I know how much Husband loves the water (even when he can’t fish).

We spend an hour and a half just catching up on social media, reading, drawing, and napping and when the rain lightens again, we venture out for dinner. A sports bar in Brandon, SD called Tailgators calls our name and has plenty of gluten-free options.  The meal is incredible, as is the dessert. During dinner, we play each other in archery, basketball, and darts in Game Pigeon on our phones (it *is* a sports bar after all). And when we come out to the parking lot afterwards, it’s just starting to rain again. 

Back at the campground, we climb into the tent just in time for the next downpour. It looks like this will be our night! From the tent, we hear the roar of the creek just below us and train whistles from trains coming down the tracks on the other side of the creek. Plus thunder and rain. So much rain.

At 11 pm, the Sheriff drives through the park with a message playing on the loudspeaker that severe weather will be developing in the area over the next several hours. What does this mean for us? Is he telling us to leave? Just warning us that it’s going to get sketchy? We don’t know. What I do know is that our little tent site #94 at Palisades State Park ends up with a raging river on two sides of us by 1 am.

The storm gets so loud and vicious that I can’t fall asleep, despite Husband’s snores being drowned out entirely by the rain on our tent and the rushing water of the creeks. So at 1 am, I check the weather app and see that we’re now in a flood warning, which makes sense since I can hear the small trickle of a creek beside us now rip-roaring and emptying into the larger one. It’s already flooded half the campsite and is still rising. What I can’t understand is how the weather reports could be so wrong all day and into the evening, predicting an end to the rain in “2 hours” no matter what time of day I checked. Regardless of time, the radar always seemed to look like this:

I wake Husband. I know we’re *probably* okay where we are (the tent is on the highest ground on the site), but I don’t want to be a news headline for all the wrong reasons. And I can’t sleep when I’m terrified the way I am. I like data. I like being able to analyze data and figure out the *right* answer to problems. Husband thinks we’re safe where we are. But he agrees that if the kids and I aren’t sleeping because we don’t feel safe, then we should get a hotel. 

So at 2 am, I book a hotel 6 miles down the road. We aren’t even sure we can get out of the campground. When we try, we face a small bridge already under several inches of swiftly moving water, a veritable river flowing up and around both sides of it as well as through it. We make the right decision and don’t try to go through it, but it’s scary how quickly your mind thinks “Well, it’s just a couple inches deep. We could probably…” I’ve seen too many videos. Instead, we turn around to wake the camp host (a saint!) who instructs us to use a service road to get to the main highway and tells us if we can’t get out for whatever reason, we can move the tent to any open site.

We reach our hotel safely by 2:30 am, but it takes an hour for the adrenaline to wear off before I can even think of sleep. Water is no joke. It’s powerful and fast and unpredictable.

Older Child says the quiet of the hotel is weird after so many hours of listening to rain pounding the tent. They say it’s like being at the beach all day and then coming home and still hearing the phantom echo of waves in your ear. It certainly is.

I know people keep telling us we’re creating so many amazing memories for our family, but this kind? This kind, I could do without. For now, I’m just glad we’re safe and dry and can hopefully get a few hours of sleep.

In Spite of the Weather

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Day 16: 6/17/24
From: Grand Teton National Park, WY (Colter Bay Campground)
To: Yellowstone National Park, WY (Grant Village Campground)
Distance: 33 miles (+ many miles of mindless park driving)

It’s cold. But nowhere near as cold as it will be tonight. At least we were toasty warm in our sleeping bags and blankets last night. And our dude-bro friends are up at 8, which means we get music again. No singing yet, but I don’t want to hear this, so I am in favor of leaving ASAP.

We’re on the road by 9:30 and at Yellowstone by 10:30. But now there’s a steady cold rain. Check-in isn’t until 1, so we decide we’re going to drive to see some of the sights. Bad idea.

We drive three extra hours to try to see sites around the park, but the traffic is awful and all we manage to see is a bunch of steam from hot springs beyond our sight (there’s no parking to be had) and the occasional bison. The parking lots for Old Faithful and for the Grand Prismatic Spring are packed. It’s a zoo.

So we drive back and set up the tent at 2 in cold wind. At least the rain stops for 15 minutes so we can set up. Then we climb in, huddle beneath blankets and in sleeping bags and take a much-needed 3-hour nap.

When we wake, we are reluctant to get out of sleeping bags, but we do and we head to the gift shop/grocery store/grill to get dinner. It’s an hour before closing and they are out of almost everything. No fries, no cheese, no creamer for coffee, and a whole list of other things I didn’t listen to. Sandwiches and drinks are all we need anyway! We watch the snow falling outside and then shop for an hour to stock up on anything we might need for the cold, cold night ahead. A hat for Husband, gloves for me and Younger Child, a couple of extra sweatshirts, and we’re set.

When we get outside again, the snow has stopped. We debate going back to Old Faithful and Grand Prismatic again since no one seems to be on the roads, and as we’re debating, we see an doe elk and her suckling calf. Now we have to take a drive. Even if it *is* 8 pm. (We all just had a lengthy nap after all…) So we brave the impending night and weather and trek out into the falling snow (again) and across the continental divide (again) and head to Old Faithful with just enough time to walk from the empty parking lot, wait 5 minutes, and watch it spout high into the air. Amidst the falling snow. How magical! There’s hardly anyone here at all and this feels like an incredible gift. 

Leaving the geyser, we spot a gorgeous bull elk grazing in the pasture. Do we risk driving a little farther to see if we can catch Grand Prismatic Spring before complete darkness? We do. And we get there after dusk. It’s a long walk on a boardwalk that’s mostly frozen from the steam of the hot springs and the currently 30 degree temps. There’s not much color to see at this point, but with no one here, it’s hauntingly beautiful. (Literally, almost no one. There’s one person here – a girl from Chicago who caught up to us mostly because she didn’t want to be walking it alone, but wanted to see it before she leaves the park.) By the time we return to the car, it’s completely dark and both kids are convinced they’re somehow going to die. And of course…husband finds a ring on the ground in the parking lot, in the dark. Who needs a metal detector? (All these plummeting temps must be making those rings just slide off cold fingers.)

We have an hour drive back through dark and snow to get to our side of the park. It’s a little harrowing, but we make it back to the camp by 11, brush teeth, and hop into freezing sleeping bags that take some time to warm.

And in the middle of the night, Younger Child and Husband heard elk bugling to each other somewhere near the campground. I pretend not to be jealous, but—OH!—*these* are the sounds I want to hear in nature!

Magic Meadows

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Day 3: 6/4/24
From: St. Louis, MO
To: Cedar Bluff State Park, KS
Distance: 561 miles

New rule: Don’t book an interior room that overlooks the gym. You *will* be woken up by weightlifters with every rep they finish…at 5 am.

thunk * thunk * thunk

Anyway, guess I’m up early. I’m ready to hit the road by 7 am. If only the kids were awake.

We nab a quick hotel breakfast before getting on the road, knowing the drive today will be a slog as we are pretty much on I-70 for 500+ miles through all of Missouri and most of Kansas.

The weather stays mostly pleasant, though thunderstorms threaten on the horizon for much of our drive through Kansas, which makes for dramatic sky photos, at least. Husband is a trooper, still acting as the sole driver even after 3 days, despite my offers to relieve him. 

Children have reacted to Missouri and Kansas with the expected observations. “There is nothing here!” And “Why would people want to live here?” They agreed it all made more sense when you take into account the fact that the farming here is really good, so farmers want to live here, despite the constant threat of rain, tornadoes, and snowstorms.

On that, why don’t we read more about the European settlers’ reactions to seeing tornadoes for the first time? Can you imagine what the first European thought upon seeing one? How were they not terrified out their minds? How did they not turn around and run straight back to the east coast? Anyway. Welcome to my random thoughts as we travel the state of Kansas.

About an hour from our destination, we’re all starting to feel a little loopy. A quick bathroom break leads to a conversation with someone driving eastbound who inquires about the weather. He’s worried about the possibility of hail damage on his pretty orange Dodge Challenger.

I can’t blame him. We thought we’d hit the storm since so many pockets of rain kept forming south of I-70 and drifting northeast, but miraculously, the storm separated around us and we haven’t hit rain since leaving St. Louis.

“Most exciting thing in Kansas so far,” says Older Child about a long train loaded down with coal that traveled beside the highway. They’re not wrong.

The land has become so flat that even the billboards are at ground level because they don’t need to be elevated to be seen. But the oil pumps are staggered across the ground now and we all agree they look a bit like terrifying, angry iron horses.

Another two hours and we finally arrive at Cedar Bluff State Park in Middle-of-Nowhere Kansas. And oh, the sounds of Western meadowlarks, American goldfinch, Orchard orioles, and Northern bobwhites! That subtle hush of the wind across the plains! I’m in love. Again.

The evening brings a long slow sunset from the porch of our cabin for me and Younger Child while Husband and Older Child go to the nearby pond. After finding a discarded lure and some trashed fishing line, they make their own rod with a stick. Did they catch a fish? Of course. A bass. Because Husband can fish anywhere with anything. Including junk.

They also come back with this guy, who happened to be crossing the road as they were driving back. Since they didn’t want him to get smushed, they bring him to the cabin and release him into the meadow. Not long after, Husband catches sight of a whitetail deer dashing through the high grass. By this point, I’m fairly convinced the meadow is pure magic.

We enjoy the evening from the porch, eagerly awaiting the appearance of the first stars. A little stargazing and then we’ll call it a day. But wait, what’s that we hear? Coyotes! A pack howling and yipping somewhere in the distance. How exciting! What a way to end the day. 

Tomorrow? We’ll bid farewell to the plains and head for the mountains and the trees.

No Moonbows for You!

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Original Post: August 17, 2015

Day 2 at Yosemite.  At least we were prepared for Tioga Pass Road today.  We woke early, figuring we’d start the day off right.  That meant fishing in the stream in the meadow directly across from the campground, of course.  Nate caught several cutthroat trout, hooting and hollering each time he reeled one in.  And while we (ahem, Nate) were fishing, I sat by the shore, photographing and generally appreciating the solitude.  Until these guys showed up.

Okay, so they were pretty welcome and I’d hardly say that they ruined my solitude. They checked us out for several minutes before deciding we were no threat and that the meadow looked like better eating on the opposite bank. They splashed in and waded across to the other side. (With one stopping to pee in the middle of the stream.  Really???  What a boy thing to do.)  I was really just in awe at how close they were to us, without a concern that we were near.  When two additional frisky deer showed up about twenty minutes later, the entire spunky herd took off together.  At a distance of 30 yards, it was a pretty spectacular sight.  And the Belding’s ground squirrels were pretty darn cute, too (even if they might be filthy little plague-carriers).  

This guy took several minutes before coming out of his burrow.  I’m sure he wanted to make sure I wasn’t a coyote ready to pounce on him.

Since Tioga Pass Road threatened to be long and exhausting again today, when we’d finished with our morning in the meadow, we headed to Tenaya Lake on the way to the falls.  I didn’t need to see Yosemite Falls until the evening anyway.

We just figured we’d make a day of the journey.  So, on we went to picnic at Tenaya Lake, when we realized that the place was not as deserted as it had seemed.

Nate tried throwing in a line, but caught nothing.  The lake is far too deep and there was nothing to be caught from the rocky shore.  Mid-afternoon at this point, we head onward to I had begun to think of as “The Main Attraction.”  But, we were tired and Tioga Pass Road is ridiculously long.  Does this road ever end?  And it was drizzling again.  Hmm, a pull off…  (Or “pull out” or “turn off” depending on what park and what state you’re in.)  Off we go, to take a fifteen minute nap. 

Back on the road, we finally reached the visitor center in the midst of a horrible traffic jam.  The rain had picked up steadily and nearly everyone wanted to get out of the very poorly laid out parking lot.  Let me restate that.  VERY. POORLY. LAID. OUT.  Add to that the ridiculous chaos of travelers from all over the world who probably don’t read the signs so well and it’s a mess.  Oh, but wait, that’s right, the signs weren’t there to read…  One thing we discovered (belatedly) about Yosemite was that the signage within the park was awful.  The only saving grace was that I had a park map from when we’d first entered the park.  Otherwise, I think it’s safe to say that we would have been turned around quite a number of times! 

We finally found a parking spot just as the sky really began to pour on us.  It was about 4 pm by this point and we figured we’d just wait out the storm. Storms can’t last forever, right?  Lots of wicked lightning and one hour later and we were still sitting in the car.  Then – a break!  Hooray!  We got out and figured it would be a good time to do a little shopping in the gift store, particularly since it was still too early to try to hike to the falls.  (By my calculations, the sky had to clear, the sun had to set, and the moon had to rise for the moonbows to show their faces…)

We finished shopping and made it back to the car in time to see this:

What? 

To say I was frustrated would have been a severe understatement.  It wasn’t as though we could wait out the storms forever, particularly if they just kept forming and lingering. How could we be HERE, in Yosemite, during the perfect time for moonbows and be foiled by the weather of all things? I swore I heard the soup nazi in my head, only instead of no soup for me, he was screaming, “No moonbows for you!”

Disappointed, we decided to throw in the towel rather than wait another several hours in the car.  You know what this meant, of course.  Back to Tioga Pass Road.  But, on the way out, we saw at least a few sights that made the trip to “The Main Attraction” worth it. Here and there the sky cleared for just an instant and the sun set the peaks on fire, the low-hanging clouds only making the scene more dramatic.

For all that Yosemite skunked us, I’m still surprised that I managed to pull off a few photos I hadn’t thought were all that great when I was out in the field, but at the computer discovered that they weren’t nearly as bad as I’d thought! 

Perhaps there’s some Ansel in me after all.

Yosemite (Pronounced Yo-Seh-Mighty in my book)

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Original Post: August 16, 2015

Leaving Sequoia National Park, I was excited to head to Yosemite.  Yosemite.  That amazing park where Ansel Adams produced so many phenomenal photographs.  Images that influenced my love for photography, perhaps even images that fueled my insatiable love for nature. (Though I admit, early childhood hikes with family had already sparked that fire.)  When I “discovered” Ansel Adams, I was a freshman in high school and my Intro to Photography class with Mr. King taught black and white film photography.  We learned to develop our own 35 mm film, used the dark room to produce photo prints, and broke into the photo room like James Bond with our school ID cards – a skill all of the photo students at Freedom High possessed.  How else were we supposed to get our work done if we couldn’t find Mr. King to open the photo room for us? Given the digital age, I wonder if that class is still offered.

In a short 2-hour drive, I would soon be in the very park that had inspired my love of landscape photography.

Oh, but I should have known by now that no anticipated drive time was ever truly accurate.  2 hours to Yosemite, yes, but another 3 beyond that to the campground we had booked. Outside of the park. To the east.

Let me present this image to you to make our dilemma even clearer:

Where we entered the park from the west, where our original campsite was booked (nice job, Lorraine!), and our refuge campsite at Tuolumne Meadows (snicker…)

But, that wasn’t all of the fun!  No!  Tioga Pass Road (i.e. The Road from Hell) is the ONLY road through the park.  And it was under construction.  One lane closed on a two lane road.  You don’t have to be a genius to figure what fun that brings.  It means…you guessed it, we sat and waited for 20 minutes while the traffic coming the other way followed a pilot vehicle (a very slow-moving pilot vehicle) through the construction zone, before the pilot vehicle would turn around and lead traffic in the opposite direction.  But we didn’t get to experience this fun just ONCE.  We went through two large sections of road like this, adding about an extra hour to the trip.

Our only bonus, we got to see a bear butt.  No, not a bare butt (although he wasn’t wearing clothes), but a bear butt.  The black bear had just crossed the road as we arrived and we got to gawk as a he continued on into the woods, having really only been able to see his rear thanks to the line of cars that had stopped before us to watch him cross.

By the time we passed Tuolumne Meadows Campground, we were beat and in no mood to drive another hour to our campground.  So, we decided to ignore the “Full” sign by the roadside and check to see if they had any availability.  We were in luck (Or were we?  More on that later.) and they had a single site available.  Relieved, particularly since it had started to rain, we headed to our site.

Oh, but the camp site.

We arrived to a large puddle of water covered in a delightful chartreuse-colored slime.  I’m still not sure to this day whether it was pollen (from pines?) or just a slime residue from the trunks, but the stuff was everywhere.  The puddle leading to our campsite was just the most offensive build-up of it.

We set up the tent in the steady rain, hurrying to get it done before the real downpour began and to our amusement (yes, that’s a little sarcasm), the rain stopped the instant the tent was set up.  Lovely.

Part of the reason we had chosen to stop at Tuolumne Meadows instead of continuing on to our previously booked campground had to do with the fact that I wanted to capture photos of moonbows, a phenomenon that only happens at a certain time of night, at a certain time of the month, with very specific conditions needed.  In order to capture moonbows (yes, that’s a new link), I needed to be able to be at Yosemite falls at night during this very specific time.  By fate or by simple good fortune, we were at Yosemite during a full moon.  Condition number one was met.  And we could be at the falls when the moon was no higher than 42 degrees in the sky.  Condition number two – check.  And, of course, the sky needed to be clear.

(Hear the chirping crickets on that one?)

Oh, right, the rain.  Well, the forecast still looked optimistic, so I just hoped that it was true and I could look forward to the sky clearing.

The drive back to the falls was at least an hour and a half from Tuolumne Meadows.  Add in the extra hour to the campground we should have been staying in and you’ve got a 2 1/2 hour drive in the middle of the night on a winding road in pitch black that we would have been taking.  Not my idea of a good time, though let it be duly noted that I was up for whatever it took to get the moonbows on film.  Er, make that on my SD card.  Whatever.

We were prepared to drive it.

We were not, however, prepared for the unpredictable weather.  It stormed the entire night, a storm that produced lots of lightning and thunder and pouring, pouring rain.  Hooray, more chartreuse slime to look forward to!  (And all over our tent nonetheless!)

Yes, it was safe to say that night number one for Yosemite was a bust.  But I still had high hopes that perhaps night two would fare better.  Thank goodness I’d thought ahead to plan TWO nights at Yosemite.  (Can you hear me snickering in that statement?)

On a side note, does Tuolumne Meadows Campground sound familiar to you?  If you keep up to date on the news, you should be well-aware that it was closed down this very week due to the discovery of two dead squirrels who had been infected with…the plague.  That’s right.  The plague.  The one that killed 25 million people in the 14th century. This one.   

Well, we’ve been plague-free for over a month now, so I think we’re probably in the clear.  They say that fleas are the only way to become infected (and the primary route of transmission between animals and people), but I’m still left pondering that creepy, yellow slime.  Perhaps the fleas are a coverup…