If you are an active camper you have, inevitably, been caught at some point in the rain. You don’t even have to be an active camper, some of our friends who rarely ever camp continually enjoy a shower or two whenever they go with us – it’s like a tradition now and we laugh about it.
One of the most memorable times we’ve camped in the rain was the weekend we decided to take the 5th wheel and 4-wheelers for a weekend of off-road play.
The preceding week had been nothing but comfortable temps and sun-filled days but, like many spring weekends in Texas, by Friday it was cloudy and a bit chilly. Luckily, our friends are troopers and the weather didn’t cancel the trip.
We arrived at the dirt road that leads to our camp 3 more miles in during a steady but light rain. The soil there is gushy, mushy clay and makes for a mess when wet so we didn’t make it to the official “camp”, instead we made an impromptu one just inside the property gate.
Still eager to enjoy our ATV ride no matter what the weather, we unload the quads, don some ponchos and “mount-up”. Riding on mud-slick roads, up and over hills and through an obstacle course of huge rocks, mesquite tree’s and grazing cows was quite interesting in the rain – someone should seriously invent windshield wipers for sunglasses just for such occasions – but it was a BLAST! We had free reign on 2,000+ acres and totally enjoyed finding new and rarely visited areas in the thickest parts of the property.
After a full 3-4 hours of non-stop riding in a constant, soft rain made for a fun, muddy mess to say the least. The quads were covered from tire to handlebars with mud. The backseat passenger had a nice even mud-sprinkle pattern from their rear to the top of their head and everybody’s mud boots were dripping mud. Boy, we had a GREAT time making that mess!
It wasn’t until we returned to the 5th wheel that that “good time mess” became an “ugh!” and “yuck!” mess. We were scrapping up old towels for both stepping on to remove muddy shoes, pants, and poncho’s to newer towels to dry hair, face, and plot at the spots on our clothes that escaped the protection of the poncho.
Being a bit of a clean freak, our trailer is decorated with several washable rugs to begin with but those quickly became wet and muddy. More towels were scavenged to cover the rugs just so we could walk around inside without making everything else wet – including all the parts of us we just dried!
Needless to say, we ran out of towels, continued to find muddy wet spots with our socked feet and, if it wasn’t for being close friends, we would have had some bad attitudes by night fall.
Tune in tomorrow to read about “Travel EASY Decks: What Camping Is Like WITH Them
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