Thursday, April 7, 2011

It May Have Been the Rain

 It may have been the rain. I just wanted to relax, put the feet up for a few days, maybe do some walking (not much) or read but, after day one at an Orlando KOA the lizards left and the frogs took over. It wasn’t forty days and nights but close to forty hours and it rained so hard I wondered if the Creator had decided to give water another shot at humankind... perhaps throwing in a few tornadoes for those at Disney who came for the rides.

We stayed in one of those cabins on wheels, my wife, daughter and a guy married to her who turned out to be an expert on tornadoes.  The rain came for nearly two days and I know because every two hours old “Credit Union”, a loving term I use to describe the wife when she’s in fiscal mode, would remind me.  “Harmon, it’s a hundred dollars a day here, hear? And it’s rained for two days straight!” “Yes dear, two days, one hour and ten minutes.”  She thinks I hung the moon I suppose and can therefore take care of weather.


We mostly ate, (one belt notch worth) and watched all the wars on TV, until I looked out the window and saw RV awnings, and small stuff spinning through the air. Things began to spin out of control then and I’ll admit I felt a bit like Noah must have felt with no letup in sight and small animals (our two dogs) cringing in the corner.


 Lightning struck at least fourteen hundred times (Weather.com) in a twelve hour period, causing this “strobe” affect when you looked at them. They will no doubt need counseling as both have tics as a result of dodging thunder (a thing that cannot be done) for twelve hours. At the KOA you are encouraged to “pick up” after your dog. I’m going to stop here and let your imaginations do the rest. Those doggie doo baggies are over-rated. “Credit Union” wants to put diapers on them but I just can’t get my head around that.


The tornado warning…not watch, with the difference being the position of your head, lasted the twelve hours as we sat in what every weather man/woman on earth will tell you not to be caught in during a tornado…a trailer on wheels made to look like a wooden home. My son-in-law, the weather “expert”, reminded us to listen for the sound of the train. “Train?” We asked. “Yeah, the train sound…that tells us when it’s time to go sit in the bathrooms across the street.” “Uh, how much time to we have after hearing the train sound?” I asked, being the oldest person in the cabin and no doubt in need of more time to get to the bathrooms across the street. “Not long.” He said, which meant I was relegated to standing in the rain periodically, so as not to miss “The Orient Express”. 

To make matters worse, one of the dogs had what “Credit Union” refers to as “my god, it’s a flea infestation!”  That’s what she calls it and the dogs know that what comes after that is, “it’s got to have a bath!” So here they are dodging thunder, sensing the end of life as they know it and having to worry about the worst possible end time…the bath.
Did I mention sleeping on the floor? Well, we did have options. Option one was sleeping in a double bed designed for large dwarfs.
Option two was sleeping in bunk beds designed for large dwarfs. 


 
And option three was sleeping on the air mattress “teaser”, no doubt designed by an insomniac bent on revenge.
 I chose three and wasn’t disappointed as it never failed to let me down around three AM.  They say this was one of the most beautiful KOAs in Florida. Maybe we’ll find out next year.

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