Adventure Location: Decatur, Al.
Adventure Date: 6-12-2021
Click the pic to enlarge.
For about an hour and a half this afternoon the OFM Teams were ready to go back to a boring plain type of day. As we were coming back from lunch a low long dark gray cloud could be seen between us and the campground. Shortly after sighting the cloud, torrential rain began to pour on Sierra as it took us to the Castle.
Right before we got to the Castle the rain slacked off to just a good rain. We got on into the Castle and the door shut when the real excitement began.
The ditch across the street filled almost immediately. And the rain run off from the campground road flowed across our campsite about an inch deep. This was bad we thought. It was bad but then the hail hit with a big BANG. It was not big hail but small marble size. For the first time in the OFM's life he figured out something pine trees were good for. The thick growth of pine trees around the campsite were doing an excellent job of diverting and slowing the hail. We could still hear the significant impacts on the Castle and Sierra but they were not hitting us as hard as the ones hitting the pavement out in the open.
Every now and then a thumb sized branchlet would land in the campsite and bounce across the gravel. This whole event lasted about 90 minutes and we did not appreciate the excitement at all.
When it stopped, it was abruptly and the sun came out. The way the high winds acted we think it was a near tornado mess. Anyway the OFM went out to see what was damaged. The Castle and Sierra were under the trees and did not suffer any noticeable damage. However most of this campground has folks that bring most of their household items with them and build an outdoor area. Most of the outdoor areas looked like badly scrambled eggs. So there was plenty of things to take care of.
As we meandered around someone mention that site one had a tree come down. Well, it had one twisted off and another leaned over toward the campsite so much it was also removed in the clean up.
Here is the before cleanup picture with red arrows pointing at the two trees mentioned.
And later we meandered back by there to get this picture of the cleaned up debris. Notice on the right the smashed picnic table. Here is the after cleanup picture.
The best we can tell there was no RV at the site when the tree came down. That was fortunate. However we heard that a few other spots in the campground had a bit of tree limb damage from falling limbs. We have not verified that. You can bet the three dumpsters will be running over with damaged household goods tomorrow. But we ended the daylight with a decent sunset.
And folks let us be a little more gentle tomorrow in our efforts at trying to have tooooo much fun.