Camping Part One: The Electrifying First Half Hour

It is said that if you count the seconds between seeing a bolt of lightening and hearing the crash of it's thunder, you'll know how many miles away it is.

As my family and I arrived at the Sulphur Campground in the high Uintah Mountain Range, we began to hear the rumble of thunder in the distance. Deciding that we didn't have much time before it began to rain, we hastily erected our tent and arranged the bedding inside. Andrew jogged back to the car to unload more supplies while I reached into the tent and lifted Drew out. Without warning, we were surrounded by a thousand growling demons, unleashed from the darkest trenches of hell. I was blinded by confusion while a crippling roaring and crackling filled my ears. Terror raced through my heart, my teeth were rattling in my head and tears instantly flooded my eyes. I clung to Drew, trying to protect him from whatever had engulfed us, but certain, all the same, that we would die.

After a few seconds, the noise faded away and only then did I realize that it had been thunder. I turned around as Andrew came running around the side of the tent with eyes, for once, as big as mine.

"Did you see that?" he yelled, even though I was right in front of him. "It hit no more than a hundred yards away across the river!"

There had been no lightening and then seconds to count it's distance; there was only the unexpected detonation. I never saw the flash of light; maybe my eyes were clamped shut by then. There is a powerful difference between the sound of thunder in the distance and the sound of it's striking a few hundred feet from you. It may seem dramatic, but it felt as though death had pulled on us a malicious prank.

Half an hour later, we were sitting in the car, still shaking with a concoction of fear and adrenaline, waiting for the sheets of rain to pass. We had been reminded how powerful Mother Nature is, and before the end of our trip, we would be shown again that her whims are not bound by seasons, and certainly not by the hopeful expectations of a ragged bunch of campers.