Day 70 – Memphis (West), AR

Wow, what a night! Remember I recently remarked on how Don takes his sleep time very seriously, nothing interferes with it? Well, scratch that. About three o’clock this morning, something very loud woke me up, and I looked around to find Don, so that he could reassure me that everything was OK. I saw that he wasn’t in bed, so I went into the living room to look for him. I found him sitting in his driver’s seat, with all the curtains on the windows open, sipping an orange juice. Outside, the world was coming apart. There were bright flashes of light all around the sky, and deep, booming noises coming one after the other. On top of that, there was the steady, heavy drumming of rain beating down on the roof of the coach. It could have been the end of the world, for all I knew. Don saw me standing in the middle of the room, and asked me to come to him. He petted me lovingly, and told me that everything I was seeing and hearing was very natural and beautiful, the flashes of light were lightning, which created the noise, called thunder. He said it was a great and wonderful spectacle that nature puts on for our enjoyment, and I should stay with him and watch it. I did, for awhile, and it was true that our location, with a wonderful view over the big river, gave us an excellent spot for watching the storm. Pretty soon, though, I was less afraid and more sleepy, so I laid down at his feet and zonked out. I think he stayed up the rest of the night watching the show.
When the sun came up, we didn’t know it. The cloud cover was very heavy, the rain was still beating down, and the thunder still rumbled from afar. We all knew that, at some point, I needed to go out for a walk. Fortunately, Geri and Don had brought my raincoat along, and Geri got me dressed while Don put on a plastic poncho. I was really relieved to get out of the coach for awhile, and went for a long run at the first opportunity. I ran so far that I could hardly hear Don screaming at me to come back. When I realized what he was saying, I turned and ran at him full speed, like I was going to run over him, but I stopped just short of him and rolled in the grass instead. He thought that was funny, so I ran off again until I got the urge to attend to business, which I did. Don had a heck of a time finding my business to bag it, but he was eventually successful. I had a couple of more rolls in my raincoat, which felt a little strange, but it was still enjoyable. Don made a strange remark about enjoying rolls in the hay with protective coverings that I didn’t understand, but he got a big laugh out of it. When we got back to the rig, Geri had decided that we needed to move to another site that we didn’t have so many puddles of water around it, and she called the Park Office to arrange it. We got assigned to a nearby site, and Don went through the routine of closing up the rig, disconnecting it, making the move, and setting it up again. It is a little drier, and closer to the river. Geri did some laundry, Don cleaned out the stash of obsolete touring literature, and we hunkered down while the rain continued to fall.

Later in the afternoon, when the rain had become just a constant drizzle, we got in the truck and went out to do some shopping. We went to a Sam’s Club and a WalMart, and they got a bunch of food and other stuff. All this shopping resulted in a late dinner for me, but that’s OK, I got some good plates from the frozen dinner they fixed. We’re hoping for some better weather tomorrow, but it doesn’t look that promising. I’ll let you know how it goes.