In 1966 I was 17, just out of high school in California. My parents wanted to visit relatives in New York.
There wasn’t enough money to fly or even stay in motels on our drive across the country. I was never fond of camping so wasn’t enthusiastic about raising a tent every night.
Our visit, reconnecting with cousins I had been close to until about age 10, was especially nice.
On the way back home, however, we ran into some weather. One night we set up our tent next to a border river between Wisconsin and Iowa. That night we woke up to the tent top pitching violently in the wind. The scary sound was, as they say, like a freight train. Since the tent had a floor, my dad yelled, “Lay hard!”
In the morning we packed up and started west again. The next town over was damaged, with downed trees and cars overturned. Obviously we had survived a tornado, but how?
We evaluated where we had camped and realized that, the river where we’d camped was down in a depression, lower than the surrounding land. The tornado had leapt right over us!
The next night, tornado warnings were still in force. Mom and I put our feet down and refused the tent. A motel it was.
I never went camping again.
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