In celebration of the fact that Alex is 11, I think the time is nigh to tell you what happened in Texas, besides nobody using their turn signals. Alex tells the story better than I do, but I'll give it a try.
We drove all day into lightning, but there was no rain, so we went ahead with our original plan to camp at the KOA in Amarillo. We pulled into the campground around 11 p.m. and found our names on the welcome board along with a map to our campsite.
We had the tent set up but not staked yet when a huge gust of wind came and (drum roll please) blew away Ace's tent! Jodi and I watched as it started to fly away into the Texas night, until Alex heroically ran, jumped up, grabbed it and then body-blocked it.
We staked it down and unrolled our sleeping bags into it. I went to brush my teeth and put my pajamas on and met a woman who was hiding in the bathroom reading a book. "I'm from Minnesota, where storms like this come up and then pass all the time. This is the safest place to be."
I kept this information to myself for the moment and returned to the tent. No sooner did Jodi leave to brush her teeth than the skies opened up. I said to Alex, "We'll be fine. We'll stay dry because we're in the tent." I then looked up and saw that it was raining on Alex's head. Inside the tent.
"I think it's time to go to the Super8," he wisely stated. I agreed. We informed Jodi that we were aborting our camping mission. In the midst of the downpour, we removed all of our things from the tent and disassembled the wet shelter. Rather than organize everything in the rain, we opened the back of the Penske truck and threw most of the things inside. Some of the tent poles ended up in the Subaru as well. We made our way to the Motel 6, where Jodi advised Alex to "act sick and pathetic."
His act was so good that I thought he was actively getting pneumonia and this trip would be the end of him.
The night desk lady at the Motel 6 was very nice. She gave us extra towels and we checked in for the night.
On our way out of Amarillo, we grabbed a geocache, and continued making our way east toward Indiana.
Alex declared the rainstorm an amazing adventure.
Sadly, that was our last amazing adventure, partially thanks to the Baptist Convention in St. Louis.
Happy 11th birthday to Alex.
To my readers, enjoy the photo from our Amarillo geocache. Next up in the Memoir of Narrow Escape: More Home Remedies to try.
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