What's that Noise?

Stephen and I took the youth group kids camping last night. This was our third attempt to do so, as rain and other impediments continuously stood in our way. But last night was the night, and we were going to do it whether rain, sleet, or hail (although non were expected). We were excited to have about 14 kids show up, surprising to me, as the trip had been thrown together over so late notice due to the weather's inconsistency.

We loaded up and began the twenty minute drive out to Port Byron to the Johnson's home, a lovely acreage with a pool, a huge hill for a slip 'n' slide, and lots of woodsy area in which to play Jailbreak and Capture the Flag until the wee hours of the morning (which we did).

We had set up the tents (not an altogether pleasant thing to do in the 92* with about 100% humidity), eaten our hot dogs and brats, swam in the pool, and slid down the slip 'n' slide. I watched from a safe distance with a camera. It had been an eventful and hot evening, and the sun had just disappeared behind the hills.

I was engaged in a lovely conversation with Sarah and was musing about how well I could see her despite the lack of stars or moon due to a heavy cloud cover that had just blown in. We noticed that the boys were trying to start a fire and decided we should join them in case anything important was going on. Upon reaching our destination, we ascertained that the lighting of said fire was not going well at all. The boys had been attempting to light the fire for about a quarter of an hour with no success amidst the comments of "My Dad could have lit that fire in two minutes" and "I think the wood is wet."

The boys were adding piles of dried grass and leaves to the fire when I suddenly heard something. It sounded at first like a dull roar, and then, as I turned my ear toward the cornfield nearby, it sounded something like someone turning a shower on over a tarp.

"What's the noise?" I asked, my brow furrowing.

The boys casually looked up and shrugged. "Nothing, I don't hear anything" they concluded after a split second and went back to their fire tending.

But, being a country girl, my heart was now in my throat as I recognized the sound of rain pouring onto cornstalks in the distance. And then I felt it. A drop landed on my nose. And then another on my cheek.

"Guys, that's some serious rain, and it's coming this way fast!" I cried, jumping up. There are few things worse than being stuck in sopping wet clothes and a damp tent for the night.

Everyone began jumping up and running to their tents, abandoning the fire to smolder under the torrent. I ran to the food table and began clearing the trash off as quickly as possible and securing anything that might blow away in case the winds came up. I then hurried to the tent to wait out the storm.

As it happened, the rain only lasted about ten minutes, then departed as quickly as it came. We emerged from our tents gratefully and returned to the fire, which was now, by some freak of nature, billowing in full flames despite the last of the rain still dripping from the clouds.

It was a bit of excitement, and even more exciting that it came and went and didn't bother us again for the whole night. This was especially nice for the boys, who stayed up the ENTIRETY of the night by the fireside, talking like girls, and then progressed to the swimming pool at about 4 am. We were all up by 6:30 (as our tents were about 95* inside), packed up in an exhausted stupor, and drove home. After which I believe we all showered and went straight to bed. For a long time.