We spent a good while in there, because there was a lot of stuff to see. I have a few more pictures, but they all kind of look the same. If you honestly want to see more here, let me know.

The rest of that drive was fairly uneventful. We stopped at a Wal Mart because we needed food and a roll of tape. We bought cheap hot dogs and two huge bags of slightly odd tasting pretzels, and a roll of tape. A brief digression from the story...You would not believe the controversy that this stupid tape has sparked. I believe in buying things for value. This is the only area of my life where I think remotely long term. If your choices are a skimpy 10 yard roll of tape for $.75, or a 38.89 yard roll for $1, which one would you buy? The bigger roll is a much better value, despite being $.25 more. And yet I was ridiculed buying the bigger roll, on the basis of 'when are you going to use that much tape?' I'll have you know, that roll of tape is still in my car, and I have used it many times, and because it's big, I still have enough left for many, many more uses. Thank you very much.

Anyway, we used the tape to hang a 'Colorado or Bust' sign in the back window. (Yes, that is the actual sign, as the roll of tape is the actual roll of tape.) It was colored yellow with a hilighter, but it faded. We got a few people who honked and cheered us on as we were driving down the highway. Mostly by people with Colorado or, oddly enough, Oregon license plates. After a while, we made it to the campground. We drove around for a while, looking for the perfect campsite. And then we found it. Right on the lake, with enough trees to hang the tarp (the tent we had leaked, so we needed to string a tarp over it in case of rain). I was just getting the tarp up when we heard thunder. I looked across the lake and there was a black line coming straight at us. I didn't have enough time to fully hang the tarp. I tied it to the center line, then managed to stake and tie off the corners with the help of Courtney and Jolene (it took both of them to hold the corner still while I tied it). A few minutes later the storm actually hit, and we jumped into the car.

These are pictures that I took from the inside of the car. The two on the top are the same picture, but the one is brighter so you can tell what you're looking at. The one on the right is what it actually looked like. It's about 5:00 in the afternoon, in early August. The skinny thing is the windshield wiper.
The two below are other storm pictures. The black square in the bottom left is the back of my inspection sticker. The one on the right is the tarp. Normally it would hang a little higher than head level, and it's tight enough that it doesn't sag, except where I want it to channel the water. We moved the picnic table under it hoping that it would stay dry. At one point the wind was so strong that it wrapped the tarp around the table and you could see the spaces between the boards. If you look carefully, you can see the center rope, and you'll notice that it's above the tarp. In the process of trying to get the tarp corners under control and tied down it flipped over, and in the chaos I didn't notice.

After the storm calmed down, we went out to survey the damage. I'll have you know, THE TARP WAS STILL UP. I'm quite proud of that. The ropes were a little stretched, and the metal stakes were bent to a right angle about an inch from the top (the part sticking out of the ground) but other than that we could have pitched the tent under it right then. I flipped it back over the center rope and started adding other ropes because it was still rather windy. Then I heard somebody yelling from down by the water. I went to investigate. These next pictures need no text, other than they were across the lake to the right of our site, and I haven't modified them except for the size. In other words, they're real, I swear. (Just a warning, the first one is a significantly larger file than most of the other pictures on here, because the quality suffered hugely if shrunk it too much, so be patient.)

To heighten the suspense, click here to see them.