This week’s JOY starts out with one of my supreme pleasures: camping. My husband insists that I call it “glamping”, as in “glamorous camping”, I guess because we do not sleep on the ground, or cook over an open fire, or carry all our stuff on our backs. To which I say: we do cook outside (a Coleman stove), we do sleep in a little camper WITHOUT air-conditioning, which in today’s campgrounds is a rarity, and yes, we do carry lots and lots of equipment – in the back of the car.
Whatever you call it, it gives me great pleasure to sleep outdoors (with screens between me and the bugs), to cook and eat outdoors, and to sit around a campfire and read a book.
This week, we made our best attempt at camping. But after only a few hours of sweating, sweating, and more sweating in 90° heat and oppressive humidity, we finally looked at each other and said, “Are we having fun?” We were not. We decided to sleep that night in our camper, and head back home to air-conditioned comfort in the morning. It turns out we were thankful that the heat drove us out. Because the next day, a severe thunderstorm rolled through.
As were heading out that next morning, we heard all sorts of warnings about a severe storm that was approaching. And sure enough, it happened. I am not exaggerating when I say the 70 mph winds would have overturned our tiny camper, and the hail would have destroyed it if we had stayed in the campground. As the rain poured down and the wind picked up we felt as if we were in the movie “Twisters”, which we had just seen last week. Unlike the movie, we were not driving toward the storm – we were driving away, but we still felt as if any minute we might be swept up into the clouds.
Finally, we approached a town, and decided to pull over and go into a building where we would be safe. We chose the bank on Main Street. And would you believe me if I told you this bank was in the town where our son-in-law grew up? What a coincidence. The tellers welcomed us and marveled with us as we watched the crazy storm outside. I asked if they knew my son-in-law and his family. Of course they did. Which brings up another joy of mine: discovering that it is indeed a small world. I mean, what are the chances? A storm hits, you pull into a random bank in a random town, and everyone there knows your in-laws?
So, camping was cut short. But we ended up safe and comfortable in our air-conditioned house. And, once again, I realized how small and wonderful our world can be. Real JOY.
