Soggy Saturday

Evening of day 3, and it’s raining.

It is not misting, drizzling, spitting or sprinkling. It’s raining. Pouring. Pounding so hard you can’t carry on a conversation, here under Camp Inertia’s canopy. That roof is not exactly keeping me dry; rain keeps blowing in sideways. It’s dripping off the prayer flags that hang from the eaves. Most of the camp chairs are at least sort of wet. Droplets glitter on my laptop screen and I”m thinking I should find a drier place to sit and write. But I'm not sure where that would be.

It rained so much today, they called off tonight’s concert. This was the night Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell were supposed to play, but Turtle Creek is over the road and Highway 16 is closed, so people can’t get to the ranch. Just like it was in 1987. I hear Emmylou and Rodney are going to do an impromptu acoustic show at the YO Hotel in town. But Javier and I are parked here at the ranch.

Just as I did when this happened in’87, I’m worried that I don’t have enough food to survive a siege. I’d planned to go to town today to get peanut butter, cheese and more tortillas. I didn’t go because it was raining. I kept thinking I’d wait until it stopped.

It stopped for a while after the first gullywasher, the one that hit shortly after breakfast. Javier was napping when the second one came along, but before he crashed he took the precaution of dropping the sheets of plastic that curtain off the bed. I’m not sure it ever quit raining from that point on, but it did let up for maybe half an hour. By that time the floor of our tipi was a puddle pretty much all the way across, and I was glad (again) that we keep our bed up on blocks. We crawled out to check on neighbors, check the fire in the BBQ pit. Someone came by and said Sudden Creek was rising, so I went behind Inertia to check. It’s running faster and muddier than it was yesterday. I found the little girls swimming by the bridge, supervised by parents, and the girls wouldn’t let me pass until I stated my name and purpose.

Another wall of water arrived shortly after that stroll, accompanied by thunder and lightning. So here we are. I shouldn’t worry about food. I live next door to Camp Inertia, and they won’t let anybody starve. Besides, I just heard that the food booths at Main Stage are open, even though there isn't a show. They already had food fixed to sell, and I guess the people who work the booths can't eat it all by themselves.