A Journey to Spirit #18: Caught by the Rain

It would be a wet, rainy weekend, and no one loved the antics, rain or shine, more than Robert.

It was Friday, and the rain would continue throughout the night. The sound of rain to this day reminds me of this night. As daylight approached, we were snapped out of our sleep by a pounding on the door.

“Hey boss, best you shake those cobwebs or you might end up fishing without a boat today!”

Robert was up to the door before I was able to lift my head from the pillow. All I heard was, “Holy shit!” He was back into the bedroom and jumping into his clothes in record time. His face showed the panic. “Get up and get dressed and batten down the hatches, and hurry.”

“We’re nearly surrounded by water. It’s time to move or we’ll float out to sea.” Even though the comment stirred a laugh from me, I heard panic in his voice too that I’d never heard before. I was up and dressed in record time and threw anything that wasn’t bolted down into the cupboards and locked them tight. I turned off the furnace, locked the fridge and put some odds and sods into the sink. Then I joined the chaos outside. Sure enough the river was raging and spilling over the banks. Instead of going around us, it was quickly encroaching on our island. Behind us the river had also decided to start cutting us off from the only road up and out of there. Robert and the boys were in full gear. Quite honestly I had never seen anyone move as fast as those three did that morning.

“Get in the truck and start it up,” he yelled to me. I ran over to the truck and fired her up all the while watching as he gathered what he could throwing chairs and BBQ, hoses and anything else that wasn’t tied down into the back of the truck. He climbed into the truck and backed in to the 5th wheel plate on the first try. Meanwhile I’m staring at the river that’s raging across the road. I’m also thinking how on earth are we going to get across that river with a truck and 35 feet of trailer. My heart started racing and I’m sure I must have looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Yellow Hair had backed his truck up and had connected with the tent trailer and we were ready. Robert yelled out the door of the truck as he slipped her in gear.

“Give it all you’ve got and don’t stop!”

Robert went first. If he could get the 5th wheel across the river, Yellow Hair could make it with the trailer. The rain was relentless and never let up over the ten minutes it took us to prepare. The river around the campsite was coming closer so there wasn’t much room to back up to straighten the axle before taking a run at the river and the hill on the other side of it. The river was bad enough but then having to climb a hill on the other side that was mostly just a field of boulders made matters worse. I thought about all the things in the trailer that weren’t stowed away, and wondered if we’d break windows and all manner of glass things as the trailer was about to twist and pitch. No matter as we had no time to waste. The river looked like it was about eight feet across at the bottom of the hill and it looked deep enough, maybe two or three feet but it was raging too.

Robert put the beast into gear, revved the engine and we were off. Huge boulders had been exposed by the raging water and the ride was extremely rough, loud and scary. Up and over, up and over, noise, grinding, water splashing, boulders flying, rain drowning, headlights flashing, I held my breath and hung onto the seat for dear life. The truck was through the river and started up the hill. Robert gunned it. The tires spun like mad and we could hear rocks flying and hitting the 5th wheel as it came reluctantly up the hill behind us. By the time we hit the crest, we both looked at each other and nodded. We made it.

“Thank God and this good old Ford,” he laughed.

“Thank you, my dear, and then the Ford,” I reminded him. At the top of the hill Robert pulled over and we got out of the truck to cheer Yellow Hair over the river and up the hill behind us. From where we were standing, we realized we were very lucky indeed to have made it at all, let alone in one piece. Yellow Hair gunned the engine and set off. His truck lumbered over the boulders that had grown even bigger by the time he hit the river. The noise was fierce, and yet up the hill he came, truck, trailer and all. Luck was on our side that day, and I was humbled as the power of Mother Nature was being been stamped into my memory during my studies of all things Robert.

…to be continued

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