Mesa Verde | WheresJo

We camped the night in Mesa Verde National Park. It was our first (and only) nights camping.

Mike expertly put up the tent. I carefully got the firepit ready for a fire. I put all the newspaper from the car into the fire along with some cardboard ripped up from our beer cans. I then laid the wood on top, ready to light later when it got dark.

We put some water in our saucepan and started to boil some pasta up for our dinner, when suddenly there was a loud CRACK, FLASH, and some giant SPLOTS of rain. We dived in to the car just in time as torrential rain pelted down on us for about 30 minutes. I was very thankful we had chosen a high spot as we watched the campsites below us start to flood.

It is the monsoon season in America and it’s pretty normal to have thunderstorms and flash flooding in the afternoon. This is the reason we hadn’t camped already. Most days, the radio would warn us of thunderstorms and hail and send us rushing to the cover or a hotel. Then the sun would come out and there would be no sign of thunder or rain. Until tonight, when we decided to camp. Typical.

Anyway – after about 30 minutes of torrential rain and busting for a pee, the storm stopped. It looked like another black cloud was coming our way – so we ducked to the toilet. I did mine pretty quickly and was waiting for Mike when it started to splot again. “Mike – it’s starting again – pee faster” I yelled into the gents toilets. “I can’t pee any faster” he replied.

Thankfully, it did not rain again, but our fire was ruined, our tent had blown over and everything was soaked. On the positive side – out pasta had cooked itself.

Thankfully the store let us swap our wet firewood for some dry stuff, and we were able to have our campfire.

We slept in the car.