Despite getting a late start from work, fighting outbound weekend traffic from Houston and dodging thundershowers all the way to Magnolia, I managed to reach the campground at TRF shortly after 5pm on Friday, October 5th. The RenGeek and his lovely Lady, Pamela, had, of course, arrived hours earlier to stake out a generous area for our communal campsite, set up "McDane's Tavern" and raise their own pavilions. Mine own tent went up in a matter of minutes, with all my bedding, gear and garb stowed safely (or so I thought) inside (my tent is the blue-grey dome behind The RenGeek's dark-green van and beyond his "McDane's Tavern" pavilion in the photo above, left).

And not a minute too soon!!!

Hardly had I zipped shut my tentflaps when it began to rain. Hard. With lightning and thunder. And wind. LOTS of thunder and lightning and wind and rain!

Then it really began to pour in earnest. I mean, the sky opened up and a Monsoon deluge roared down on us! Did I mention thunder and lightning??? There were multiple strikes within a mile of us, all around! Between the roar of falling water and the Flash!crack!!BOOM!!! of the lightning, you could hardly hear the bagpipers skirling on The RenGeek's CD Player inside the Tavern...

And this went on for FOUR FREAKIN' HOURS!!!

Needless to say, we got wet. No, we got soaked. Strike that: think

Now before the rains came, we had planned to hit the BBQ palace in Magnolia for dinner that evening. They dish up a real tasty chicken-fried steak there which is so large it not only covers the medium-sized pizza pan on which it's served, but flops over the edges to boot! It only costs around $8, including your drink plus all the usual "fixin's and trimmin's" -- gravy, potatoes, vegetables, bread and a trip to the salad bar thrown in for good measure. Whoooeee! We always figure to eat only a third of it there, then take the rest back to camp for breakfast and lunch the next day...!

But after an hour of watching the rain come thundering down, none of us were in any fit condition to drive. Hey, remember where we were -- "McDane's TAVERN". You really didn't expect us to be drinking weak tea and root beer floats that night, did you???

So first the cider made the rounds, then the Mead. Then someone produced a couple pints of homebrew, named "Faerie's Blood" and "Royal Honey," respectively. The "Honey" sounded tasty, so I welcomed a generous swallow. Oh, Ye Godz but that was a POTENT brew!!!

I mean it burned in the mouth before cauterizing everything else on the way down to the stomach, then paused there a moment as a pool of liquid fire. Believe me, that first rush left me with watering eyes and gasping for breath! Ah, but then it mellowed out, spreading out as a blessed warmth all the way down to my toes.

Whew, but I'm glad I passed on the "Faerie's Blood". It was richly flavored with cinnamon, so I'm told, which made it a fiery brew, indeed!

There's nothing like shared misery to make a community out of a motley crowd of strangers. When that crowd is a bunch of playtrons at the TRF campground, it quickly turns them into one huge, extended family. They really look out for each other! So after a while, a group of older fellows with a trailer parked up by the road noticed us cowering in the darkness of the Tavern and invited us up to share some of their fresh-cooked Gumbo. Ummmm, good: there's nothing quite like a hot meal on a cold, wet night!!!

While we ate, we all marveled at the sheer ferocity of the storm.

It was coming down so hard by then that sheets of water were literally cascading down the side of their trailer in a minature waterfall. Even more impressive was the "rainstorm" under their tarp. The force of the rain was so great and relentless, it was actually forcing micro-drops of water thru the pores of the tarp! We could see them quite clearly, falling like a gentle mist past the Coleman lamp the fellows had attached to a pole in the center under their shelter...

Needless to say, EVERYTHING got soaking wet -- even if it wasn't actually out in the rain!

Sometime after 9pm, the howling storm finally moved on. Oh, it still drizzled a bit -- but at least it wasn't pouring down. That's when the drumjam started. Naturally, I headed off to the sound of the drums, heedless of the rain, the mud and the rivulets running swiftly thru the campground.

The drumjam was set up in a nearby yurt, one of those eight-sided Mongolian tents. You sure can cram a surprisingly LARGE number of people into one of those, believe me! Even so, there was still quite a large crowd outside, standing in the puddles while listening to the drummers "layin' down the beat". Myself, I managed to squeeze my way inside and near the drummers...

Ah, sheer bliss! Not only was the drumming great, but with so many bodies crammed together it was quite pleasurably WARM!!! [grin]

They finally wound down around midnight, so I took my usual tour of the campground. Chaos, I noticed, had erected one of those huge, portable, canvas-sided carports for their drumjam -- but the winds during the storm had turned it completely upside down in the mud earlier in the evening. No drumjam there!

Worse, all the excitement of the evening must've worn out everyone else out. There were still a few folks sitting around campfires, talking, but most were heading for bed right early. Early for playtrons, that is!

So I headed back to mine own tent for some well-earned sleep, too.

Only to find that all my bedding, garb and gear inside was both cold and wet, if not outright soaking! I did manage to find a dry jacket to replace my sodden shirt -- and dry socks to keep my feet reasonably warm. And my sleeping bag did have a spot which wasn't completely saturated, so I curled up into a ball inside and drifted off to sleep.

Only to wake up around 4am, feeling the, um, "Call of Nature".

Talk about desperate straits! There I was, nicely warm (if not exactly dry) in my sleeping bag -- and I had the urgent need to make an immediate run to the Privies. Now I knew if I left my toasty little cocoon, I couldn't get back in. I mean, in the short time it would take me to run up to the Privies and back, all the heat and comfort would be sucked completely out of my sleeping bag. Then it would be simply just TOO cold and wet for human endurance to bear!!!

So I lay there, contemplating my options and getting more miserable by the minute....

To make a long story even longer, I decided then and there that my HEATED waterbed back at the house was the only place for me that night. So after "taking care of business" [ahem!], I packed out my gear and headed back to Spring. Where I grabbed a quick, hot shower to rinse away all the mud and sand from the campground, threw my drenched cloak and garb into the dryer and fell gratefully into bed....

Finding Nirvana again as I sank into the sheer bliss of a warm waterbed, complete with clean sheets and dry pillows!!!

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