Camping...Or Not

At 6:00 AM Tuesday morning, I began composing this blog posting in my head while sitting in the car in front of the Sulphur Tourist Information Center in a downpour. By now, I have decided to spare my readers (if I have any =) the boring details, but here is the jist of how things went:
If you've read Joe's blog, you know that our camping trip started out fairly well. He didn't mention two major annoyances, however. 1.) It was extremely humid. I mean almost unbearably so. 2.) Our across the street neighbors were extremely loud. Also almost unbearably so. They never went to bed.
When they finally got in their car and left at about 5:00 AM, it began to rain. Now, let's get this straight. It had been sprinkling off and on for about 3 hours. The weather forecast before we left had said there was a 30% chance, which we thought wasn't too bad. But now it really began to rain. And with the rain came serious lightening and thunder. The weather radio now said there was a 70% chance. (Where we were, we decided, they must have increased that to 100%.)
By 5:30, we decided it was no longer safe to be sleeping in a tent with metal lightening rods sticking out of it below very tall trees. So we woke all three children and dashed madly through the deluge to the car, drove into town to the tourist information center, and parked there for 3 hours, trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to get a little more rest.
At 9:00, it appeared the rain would not be stopping for a long time. So we headed back to the campsite to collect our things. May I mention here that it is not much fun taking down a tent in the rain? Nor is it fun trying to get the dirty, wet monster stuffed into the trunk of the car. Ask Joe, he knows these things. May I also mention that it is not much fun to change three tired, hot, thirsty, hungry, cranky children inside a very packed car without getting anyone wet (either from rain or from other less desirable sources).
We pulled out of the park at about 10:30. As we left, I asked Joe if he was interested in another camping trip soon.
"Yes," he said. "As long as the chance of precipitation is definitely 0%."