August 2010 at Grimes Creek

This past weekend, from Friday, August 20 to Sunday, August 22, 2010, I went camping with the church group I recently joined.  We were camping in the Idaho mountains near Grimes Creek.  It is a beautiful area with pine trees, some old growth pines, steep mountains on either side of the creek, truly a place where you can relax and have a lot of fun!

Some of our fellow campers had ATVs and were exploring the surrounding countryside, while I stayed closer to camp and tried to fish in the creek for the Coconi Salmon that were running in the stream to spawn.  This particular type of salmon are bright red with black heads, and even though nearly every one of our party saw or tried to hand catch the salmon, I personally didn't see any, and no salmon were caught, but the fish stories around the campfire were hilarious!

Friday night we had a campfire and everyone was silly, telling stories, trying to think of songs to sing around the campfire, making up lyrics as we made a sincere attempt.  It was hard to sing between laughing so hard to the new lyrics, fish stories, etc.  We stayed up until midnight when our final camper arrived, then everyone went to sleep.

Saturday I woke up late, even though the sun was up as was the rest of our party.  I missed breakfast, but I had some backup food in my cooler. As the day wore on, the heat of the day was getting to everyone -- some jumped in the creek, some went on their ATVs, and I decided to take a drive in the comfort and air conditioning of my car. 

Toward dinner everyone congregated at camp, and we made what is referred to as "Stone Soup."  Basically, everyone brings one thing to add to the pot of soup, with the moral to the story that if everyone contributes what they have or what they can do, a community can survive and do it well.  It's a good lesson, and the soup turned out absolutely delicious with plenty to spare!

After dinner the weather started to turn grey and threatening. We really didn't think much about it until the downpour came and the winds kicked up.  Everyone scrambled to secure their vehicles, tents, kill the campfire, etc. Some in our party had heard screams from the next camp over, but were busy securing our campsite. Then some of our party went over to see what happened, only to find a horrible scene of destruction.

Two trees from the other side of the creek had fallen onto the campsite.  One tree fell on an ATV that the father of the family was trying to drive to safety, and even after CPR and other life-saving methods, he was pronounced dead.  The other tree fell on the family truck where the mother and three of their children, all under 10 yrs, had taken refuge, but by the grace of God, they were all able to get out the vehicle without injury.  Unfortunately, they were behind the ATV and saw what happened to the father.  The family was devastated in just one micro burst from the storm. 

The father was only 34 years old, left 5 children (the two oldest left earlier in the day) and his widow.  The whole family could have been wiped out if the mother hadn't moved the children to the truck because the tree that killed the father squashed and scattered the chairs that the family were sitting in. 

This event affected many in our church group in a variety of ways.  First, when the majority of us had gathered at our camp, the pastor grabbed a candle, lit it and we all gathered around the table the candle was on to pray for the family and the rescue workers; the campsite the family was in was one of the choices the pastor had to hold our gathering; the pastor and her wife and a few others in our group had been at camp since the previous Wednesday and had gotten to know the family, gone ATVing with them; one of our group is a nurse and was one of the people performing CPR on the man, and came back to camp just devastated and exhausted; and those of us who didn't go to the scene for various reasons, felt the family's pain and the pain of our friends.

Sharing this experience with a group such as ours created a new bond between us all.  We stayed up until the last emergency vehicle left, comforting each other, trying to make some sense out of what had happened, and trying to quiet the "what ifs" that were going through each of our minds.  No one really slept well that night.
 
Again, I must reiterate, that the Universe is Kind, even when It's cruel, it's kind.