Seth was relieved to complete the near vertical climb through deserted stretches of trails overlooking Las Vegas. Seth cleaned his dusty spectacles and gazed at blinking lights below.
Ha! And Dave said I couldn’t do it! Seth smiled as he thought of his brother’s derision as he loaned his camp gear to novice camper Seth. But his gloat was fleeting as he realized the sun was almost behind distant mountains, and he had yet to set up camp. The full moon was moving behind heavy clouds and it would soon be completely dark.
Frantically
Seth tried to find a suitable patch of ground that wasn’t rock hard.
He tumbled down into a trench where the softer ground made hammering
spikes easier. The tent was up in minutes with the Coleman lantern
blazing. Ha! He said again, as he dropped trousers to urinate into the dry ground. Giggling as the yellow stream flowed, he mused how indecent this had been in the streets of Las Vegas, maybe.
As
he dozed off warm and cozy within Dave's tent, he heard the thunder in
the mountains and enjoyed the sound of rain falling upon the tent.
When
the ground rumbled and shook, Seth leaped outside the tent just in time
to see the wall of water and mud roaring toward him along the gully.
His last thoughts were, ‘Dave is gonna be really pissed about the tent….’
This is a 2013 Wed. words from the early days. It is a writing challenge for bloggers to use the above underlined words to be creative. I wrote this after going on a bad camping experience, channeling the emotions into this blog. The underlined words come from that weeks challenge.
Please check out Wednesday Words and Prompts at drifting slowly
We have gone camping many times over the years. The only mistake we made was my husband pitching the tent on red ant hill. Not a good thing.
