Back to the City

I’m out of the flooded woods and home to the city. It was not an easy trip.

Because the road to camp is covered in 15 inches of water (at the shallowest point, deeper along the edges of the road), driving a car or truck through it is not possible. Last Friday, when we first heard about the flood, we parked the camp van about a mile away on the other side of the road. We’ve been walking through the water and up the mile long huge hill to use the van to go into town this week so we haven’t been completely stranded on this camp island.

We all packed the least amount of stuff we needed for the week and loaded everything into a kayak, which we walked across the water and then loaded into the van. It took three trips. I also have two fat bulldogs who are too short to walk through that much water, so they were the last kayak load.

It was unbearably hot while we did all of this and besides just being uncomfortable and sweaty, I was super anxious about my dogs who have very low heat tolerance. The van doesn’t have air conditioning but I thought that once we were driving and the wind was blowing through the windows, it would be okay.

I was wrong. After about 30 minutes of anxious, distracted driving, I asked A to drive for me and I sat in the seat with the dogs. I continuously squirted water into their mouths while also rubbing a bag of ice on Griffin. I have terrible motion sickness but had taken a pill as soon as I switched from driving, and while it helped, I was still carsick, kind of woozy from the medication and my shorts were soaking wet from the water and the ice. And I was still SUPER anxious about the dogs being okay.

It was a miserable drive, but A, M and I made it to my house eventually and cranked the air conditioning so that it was refrigerator temperature quickly. M and A got picked up today to head back to Iowa for the week. They have been SUCH amazing help and emotional support this whole time, so while I was excited to be home and have a week of relaxing and hanging out with my boyfriend and friends, I was also sort of sad to see them go. I am an introvert and need plenty of alone time to re-charge, but at camp, I get used to being surrounded by people constantly and usually have a week of being sad when camp ends in the fall as I re-adjust to normal life.

With only a week off, it’s not really an adjustment and I am happy to be home. I spent today running errands- dropping the water samples off at the health department so they could be tested, going to Whole Foods, Trader Joes and Target, running on my treadmill and tonight will make dinner for my boyfriend and I. It’s such a weird feeling to be home, but I am enjoying it so far…