Tornados miss! Camp begins tomorrow!

This whole tornado thing is getting old. Over the weekend, another two tornado warnings kept my nose in front of the Doppler radar when I would have preferred to be doing something, nearly anything, else. Both times the tornado clouds were close enough to me and the cabin so that I had to pay attention to them. So far this year my area has had 50% more tornado warnings than we usually have in an entire season, and we still have at least two months more to go of prime tornado time.

And it’s not just tornados. On Saturday about 15 air miles south of me, just under 4” of rain fell in 60-90 minutes, but up on my mountain there wasn’t a drop. How weird is that? The good news is that for the next few days the weather will be nice, even cool, which is much appreciated after the heat and humidity of recent days. I will try and take the nice weather at face value and not pay any attention to whatever will come afterwards, whatever that may be. I’ve had far too few nice days this spring to waste them lamenting that they won’t last nearly long enough.

Tomorrow is my first session of adventure camp for this year, and that should be a fun way to spend the day. This year I won’t be hiking with the kids. I’m one of the “stations” on their orienteering course, and I’ll be located down along the stream at the bottom of the mountain, where I hope we can find some minnows or crayfish or something that will engage this young video-game generation. For me the change from hiking up and down the mountain 6 times a day is a welcome one. Last year not one of my camp days was under 90 degrees, and by afternoon I was starting to drag. This year I’ll be sitting by a stream all day long enjoying the view—and the kids, too, I hope! I’ll let you know how it went on Wednesday.