The drive was somewhat slow, taking close to 4 hours to go about 160 miles, but it was actually very pretty. Everything is so green this time of year and the first one-third of the drive was through mountains so there was quite a bit of cool, rocky landscape too.
We got to our campsite for the next couple days, Maumelle Park, a COE park a little ways outside the city, arriving mid-afternoon. There are a lot of trees here and it is close to the Arkansas River, but we're on the opposite side of the loop from the river and the river's level is not too high. There are a lot of grassy areas. The clouds were piling up and the skies were very gray. The air was very humid, but there was no wind and we didn't have any watches or warnings.
We finished up our school work and had dinner before the storm started to get going outside. It started to rain. About that time, the Brock's phone alerted him that we were under a tornado watch. By the time bedtime for the little boys rolled around the thunder and lightning was getting to be about as active as I've ever seen. We were watching the news and different weather reporting services on our phones and trying to figure out what to expect and what the plan should be. While I was doing dishes, there were a couple of booms that were just jarring they were so loud. We kept looking around for any sign of a tornado, but didn't see any greenish skies, didn't hear any loud freight train noise. There was really not much wind at all. Just the warm rain, tons of lightning and earth shaking thunder. The local weather TV station that was updating on the conditions and "watches" kept beeping and finally announced that our county was under a warning. That was a little startling and we weren't sure what to do. I think a warning is supposed to mean that you take shelter right away. The bathrooms here at the campground aren't extremely sturdy looking. When we looked out and saw that the sky could've had a greenish tint and the thunder seemed right on us, we put on our shoes and hopped in the car, thinking we'd try to go to a store or something. On our way by the bathrooms, I saw someone peeking out and there were a couple of cars parked in front of it, so I could tell that at least some people were sheltering in the bathroom.
We drove a little ways until we came to a Kroger and we parked and went in. There weren't a lot of people in the store, like probably more employees than shoppers, but they are open 24 hours so we knew could wait it out there if necessary. We got out our shopping list and did a little shopping. The extreme downpour started once we got inside. The rain was so loud even from inside the store. We kept finding little puddles of water on the floor in different aisles. It seems that the skylights in the building's roof weren't designed for that heavy rain.
We eventually settled back in the home furniture section and the boys struck up a game of Go Fish. Brock called his parents to let them know that we were fine and Bryn and I brainstormed curtain ideas for her bed before finally scrapping the plans yet again. We visited for quite a while with a young man who was pushing a broom in the store. We talked about our traveling and asked him about the storm. He said "this happens sometimes" and didn't seem the least concerned with the weather. He was interested in talking more about where we'd been and where we're going. |
| The little brothers love watching someone play a video game...anytime...anywhere. |
Once it settled down outside, we paid for our items and headed out to the car and we decided to get gas for the Yukon while here. We observed people in the drive thru at Sonic and driving around just as normal. We know that God is absolutely in control and we choose to trust Him no matter what, but it does help you to stay calm when no one around you seems to be panicking.
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| This made me laugh... |
We came back to the trailer and there was a LOT of standing water in the drainage ditch area just behind our trailer. Several of the sites had little lakes all around their rv's. This county is under a flood watch now for the next couple of days and we discussed whether we should move the trailer up to higher ground in the park. There was an available parking lot, but after watching it for awhile, we could tell that the water was definitely going down despite the fact that the rains had started again. The river here is not up to the top of the banks so it just appeared to be runoff.
By this time, it was around 10:30 pm and the kids needed to get to bed and we were both really tired too. We decided to sleep on it and check on the water in the morning.
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