The Storm It started raining while we were at Devils Tower, and by the time we hit Gillette, Wyoming, it was coming down in buckets. We were both glad we decided to go only sixty-two miles that day. The guy in the office was very nice, but the park was just so-so. A gravel lot with hookups, and not very level. Dang. I hate not level. They make these heavy-duty yellow plastic ramps that you can drive your RV up on, and we've got all the right gear for just this eventuality. Ramps and chocks, and we can get level under almost any conditions. If it's too much of a hill, we're in the wrong place anyway. So in the pouring down rain, I'm out there setting ramps under the front wheels. I get them in the right place, cold rain running down the back of my neck and inside my shirt, and give Bill hand signals. "Little bit forward, little bit forward, okay stop." Bill puts the jacks down. The idea is that when we're level, the tires on all four corners are on the ground. Or on the ramps, as the case may be. Jacks down, everything looks good inside, but the wheels are off the jacks in the front. Okay. He runs the jacks back up, and I go back out in the rain for more hand signals. "Little bit, little bit, stop." Jacks back down. Dang. We're still off the ground. Jacks back up, I go back ... again ... for the hand signals. "Little bit, little bit, stop." That's the top of the ramp, so if it doesn't work this time we're screwed. Bill puts the jacks down, we're level, and ... Yay! The wheels are solidly on the ramps! Thank heavens. I run back inside and we power the slides out. (For those of you unfamiliar with recreational vehicles, the width inside is about eight feet across. Many RVs are built with room extenders that slide out to the side, creating just a little bit more living space. They're electric. You just push a button and out it goes!) Bill goes outside to hook up the electricity, water and drain, and comes right back in. "I hate to tell you this, but we're not done," he says. "The water and sewer connections are in the back and the electricity is all the way up here in front. We don't have enough cord to plug in. We have to move forward about three feet." Well, shit. So we bring the slides back in, and I go back out in the rain and hand signal him off the ramps. "Back, back, this much more, good." I grab the ramps, which are now not only wet but muddy, and drag them forward. My hair is soaked, my shoes are wet, and my windbreaker wasn't meant for a rain storm. Hand signals are vital to the process though, so there I am, waving my arms around in the rain. "Come on, come on, okay, little bit little bit stop." He puts the jacks down. The wheels come off the ground. Jacks up again, and me with the hand signals. "Little bit little bit stop." Jacks down. Hallelujah! We're solid on the ramps. Finally. Slides out. Good. Ninety-nine percent of the time we level on the first try and the slides are fine. This has to be a record. Whew! Engine off. Bill goes back out to hook us up and I get busy with the coffee pot. Dry clothes will be so much more enjoyable with a nice cup of something hot to drink. That cup of coffee wasn't meant to be. As he's walking around the front of the motor home, Bill is looking at the wheels on the ramps, checking the jacks, making sure everything looks good, and runs WHAM!! right into the sharp edge of the slide. So now it's pouring down rain, I'm soaked to the skin and so is he, and he's bleeding profusely from a head wound. I finally convince him I can take better care of him if he stops worrying about bleeding on the furniture and comes inside, so I put towels down and get him settled. Check his pupils with a flashlight, hold up two fingers, dab at his head with a damp rag to see what I can see, finally get the flow slowed and stopped, but I'm no pro, and can't tell if he's going to need stitches or not. By this time Bill is feeling good enough to drive two blocks to the hospital (how lucky is that!), so we throw the dog in the car and off we go. The emergency room is empty, and we get right in. The nurse shows us into a room and gets us settled. Checks Bill's pupils with a flashlight, holds up two fingers, dabs at his head with sterile gauze and hospital soap to see what she can see, but can't tell if he needs stitches or not. She calls a doctor in. The doctor looks at Bill's head, gives him a numbing shot so she can get him ready for stitches, and decides he doesn't need stitches after all. Doc says to Bill, "How are you feeling?" "I'm fine," he tells her. In a rather small voice, I'm sure, I say, "I'm not feeling so good." The room has no windows, the door is shut, Bill and I are both steaming as rainwater evaporates in the warm air, it's 3:00 and we haven't had lunch yet, and I'm getting over heated and light headed and starting to see black spots. They get me stretched out and find a little can of apple juice for me, and in a few minutes I'm almost back to normal. So I'm feeling better and Bill isn't bleeding, and we make it back to the car in the pouring rain and get some lunch (and that much-needed cup of coffee!) and buy a rain slicker and end up spending an extra day in Gillette, Wyoming, waiting for the storm to pass. Nobody is going anywhere. The RV park fills up that afternoon, and everybody is getting hunkered down to wait it out. We hear the wind is blowing in Sheridan at about sixty miles an hour so it's just smart to stay put. After sitting in the rain for two days we finally make it out of Wyoming and into Montana. We take it slow, and in a couple of days we're at a beautiful park outside of Missoula, Montana. The sun is shining, it's a beautiful day, and I'm happy to be anywhere but Gillette, Wyoming. I'm sitting at my computer looking out the window, and I see the guy next door fiddling around with whatever it is he just bought. Turns out he's got orange foam tubes, the kind you put on pipes to insulate your plumbing. He's cutting them and fitting them on the corners of the slides on his motorhome. I call out to him through the open window, "That looks like a really good idea!" "If you could see my wife's head," he says, "you'd know why I'm doing this." "If you could see my husband's head, you'd know why I think it's a good idea!" Turns out on that same cold and rainy day, he and his wife were in the middle of Nowhere, North Dakota, 40 miles from the nearest medical facility. She sprinted around the corner of the motorhome and ran WHAM!! into the sharp edge of their slide and ended up on her back in the mud. She needed sixteen stitches in her scalp. She and Bill commiserated, we all made friends and enjoyed the sunny afternoon, and counted our blessings. One storm out of a 5,000 mile trip, and no harm done. Not too bad! .................... The September Writer's Gallery Challenge topic is "Storms."