The gas station gave us the phone number for a towtruck, but Al the tow truck man told us that since it was 6:30 on a Friday night there was really no place to tow us to. As luck would have it this was not our first visit to Bastrop. We had come here over a year ago with our friends the Ashfords to eat at their favorite Mexican restaurant with Craig's parents who live in Bastrop. As luck would further have it, the gas station we were at was literally at the intersection that lead to the Ashfords house, about a half mile up the street. Keep in mind that the Ashfords parents are the only acquaintances we have in the entire state of Texas outside of the city of Austin. We called Craig and he called his parents, and they were kind enough to come get us. By this time it was getting late, and it was apparent that the storm was moving in, and we considered staying at the Days Inn. There was no way to fix the car before morning, and we didn't want to incovenience anyone by asking for a ride back to Austin, especially since we were going to have to be back down in Bastrop to take care of the car the next day. We decided that since we had come this far and we had all of our camping stuff with us that we might as well go camping. Craig's mom was nice enough to drive us down to the state park and drop us off. The ranger's office was closed by this point so we didn't know which campsite was reserved for us. We decided to just drive around and pick one. We hurried and set up the tent and tried to get a fire going. We immediately realized that we were missing a crucial component of our dutch oven dinner -- something to pick the dutch oven lid up with. We had always used our dutch oven with Matt and Gina back in Utah and they provided this important piece of equipment. Since it was getting late, we figured we might as well just make do with our kilbasa and hot dogs to roast over the fire. Unfortunately, the fire would not stay lit. Although I worked on it for over two hours and used half a bottle of lighter fluid and 6 newspapers (and inhaled enough smoke to come down with a case of black lung) it never stayed lit longer than 5 minutes. It burnt well enough to burn clear through five logs with all of our attempts, but they would not stay lit. It was some kind of magic wood. By this time it was completely dark and hundreds of weird beetles were swarming around the lantern we were using since we didn't have a fire. In the midst of their buzzing the park ranger pulled up in a truck to inform us that a thunderstorm was on its way in from Austin, and that it had caused a tornado by Dallas. He advised us to leave, and the other people camping by us did so. Unfortunately, we had no way to leave since we had no car and no cell servie to call back the Ashfords to rescue us. I decided not to tell Kim about the tornado or the advice to leave (she was in the tent when he came up). We packed all of our stuf into our little two man tent so that it wouldn't get rained on and we hunkered down with no dinner (except for the shared McDonald's meal from hours before).
It made for some pretty cramped conditions, but at least Megan went down easily (which was actually the first time in her entire life that she has slept next to us.) Kim and I stayed up for a while and played War by the light of our new lantern (I won). The crazy beetles threw themselves at the walls of our tent trying to get at our light. Some of them made it inside each time we opened the tent, so we had to keep it closed. It was stifling hot. The storm moved in and it was a doozy. It poured buckets, and the thunder and lighting was like it only is in places where there are no mountains and the clouds can get really low. Megan was very brave about it all (probably because Kim was hugging her and singing to her the whole time). The storm basically lasted all night, although in between downpours we would hear crazy people from another campsite blaring 80s rock and being belligerant. Our tent proved to be as awesome as we always say it is (thanks REI) and didn't let a drop inside.
We woke up in the morning and had a nice meal of breakfast bars and apple juice inside our tent. We walked around a bit outside to survey the damage. Megan loved playing with everything, and fell in the mud about 7 times.
Craig's mom came to pick us up at the appointed time and we went back into town. At the gas station we were informed that we had been parked in a handicap space all night (look at the wall in the first picture), although luckily we didn't get a ticket. Bob the towtruck man came to take us to the only shop in town that was open on Saturdays, and on the drive we had a nice conversation about "planned obsolesence" and how Australia was somehow to blame for the fact that Dodge Chargers only come in four doors these days. The mechanic informed us that it was indeed the alternator that had gone out (I knew it!), and that it would set us back $500 dollars and four hours to fix it. As if enough hadn't gone wrong with this whole event, we realized that the extended five year warranty that Kim had bought when she got the car expired on APRIL 9, 2007. If you are doing your math, that means that the extended warranty that cost $1,200 dollars expired four days before we could use it for the first time ever. The Barlows were nice enought to come pick up Kim and Megan so they didn't have to hang out at the mechanic all day, and we made it home pretty exhausted Saturday afternoon. We are still recovering from this adventure.
The moral of this sad tale? DON'T GO CAMPING ON FRIDAY THE 13TH.
