Storm at Bell Bay

On Thursday morning Linda jumped into the truck with Baka, and I jumped into the Jeep with my lunch and we headed out. I drove to work and Linda drove down to Bell Bay, her firs solo experience in the Truck Camper. By her account everything went smooth as silk. There was little traffic so she didn’t have to worry that she was driving to slow. On the two big hills she used the low #3 gear and that made the trek go well. She set up the rig and leveled it on the first try and then called me at work. I was proud of her and I know that she gained some valuable confidence so that she can use our weekend home without me.

I arrived about 5 PM with a pizza for dinner. We are and walked the campground watching everyone come in and set up. We went to bed and slept like babies.
Friday morning I drove into work to help with an OARS session. Linda stayed out and enjoyed the morning. Everything went smooth at work so I drove out and arrived about 2 PM. We sat around and about 5 PM the weather changed drastically. We were standing out by the picnic table and I said I smelled rain. Not more then five minutes later the wind started. Man the wind blew! It was a bit unnerving watching the trees sway. Linda and I just started to walk down to where we could see the lake. It had huge whitecaps on it and we knew some of the campers from the campground were down there on the lake. Just as we hit the road we felt a huge gust of wind and heard a crack followed by a crash and screams.

I ran to the northern campsite next to the lake and saw the damage. A tree had fallen on two tents! It hit them as square as it could. The people were scrambling around dragging a woman out of the first tent and carrying a baby. I tried to talk to them to offer help but they only spoke Russian. The scrambled up to their cars, tossed the woman in the back and rushed out of camp up the road. It was very weird. Jim, the camp host, came down and said that he tried to stop them because he could get help in her in ten minutes, but they would not stop. There was nothing either of us could do.

Within twenty minutes the area was calm, no wind, no rain, nothing. The campers with the boat were back and told us their tail of huge waves and trying to dock in the middle of the event. We told the story of the tree and within the hour half the Russian campers were back to pick up the remaining gear. Linda and I went down and offered our help, but they said it was ok. They spoke broken English and we respected their space and went back to camp. Jim stopped by and told us that the woman had a compound fracture of the ankle and the baby was fine. They had been in the biggest tent when the tree came down. After about an hour they whole group was packed and gone. I walked down and took some pictures. If the camp picnic table had not been where it was both tents would have been completely crushed. No one would have made it out.

With that excitement over I made macaroni and cheese and the campground got back to normal.

We got Saturday morning and hiked to the top of the hill again. We came back and read a bit then loaded into the Jeep and drove to Harrison. Linda had a craving for ice cream so we took the Thompson Lake Loop road to extend the trip and then made our way to the creamery for the cold treats. The ice-cream was great, Harrison was busy with cyclists and we took our time watching the folks wander around. We drove back to camp and I made a Dutch oven chicken parmesan dinner, we ate, went for a walk and then turned in and read. Sunday we have to pack early and get back to the house to start packing for our river trip Tuesday. Man I could get into this summer life!