“Through gathering air God sent storm clouds and rain,
Thunder that shakes the heart.”
Book 1, Metamorphoses, Ovid, translated by Horace Gregory.
Drip…
Drip, drip…
Drip, drip, drip, drop, dripdropdripordropdrodpdoidropdoroid…
Thus began what was to shape up as a four-day thunderstorm across most of the middle U.S. — severest near Kentucky and Missouri but, so I’d hoped, not as bad in our wild, wonderful slice of West Virginia.
The day after Easter, we began walking on the North Bend Rail Trail, a 72-mile stretch of trail (like the C&O behind us and the Katy ahead) built over what was once of the region’s most important rail lines. But after our lovely time on the C&O, something about the new trail seemed lacking. Maybe it was just the weather; everything was muddy. Plus, the trail ran parallel to I-50, not the majestic Potomac River. Still we enjoyed the solitude of the trail and its relative safety, minus a brief run-in with a furious pack of dogs.
The one cool — creepy — thing about the North Bend Rail Trail was its tunnels. On the first day alone, we passed through three, the last one .43 miles long (or about a ten-minute walk). That’s five minutes to the center of the tunnel. The entrances look like something from a Miyazaki movie, but because you can easily see the other side, you feel no fear stepping inside. After a minute or two, however, you feel like you’ve been walking for a long time. The light behind you has retreated but the light ahead looks no closer. Halfway into a deeply dark, dripping damp tunnel, you have no choice but to pray that, one, your headlamp doesn’t die; two, there isn’t a murderer, escaped convict, or skeleton king waiting to ambush you; and three, that the distant light wasn’t actually a specter of a train barreling towards you.
The next day, the seventh of April, one month since the day we left New York, we walked our 500th mile. That is, one-seventh the way home. We weren’t weaklings anymore, but we had a long way to grow. While our spirits relished the milestone and our minds stirred at the grandeur of it all, our bodies just kept walking.
You’re not technically supposed to camp anywhere on the North Bend Rail Trail. But we did anyway. Our second day on the trail, we stopped at the entrance to Tunnel #13. Opposite the tunnel entrance sat a gazebo, a large wooden structure on the hillside, Bonds Creek babbling below. We sat down to read and pass the time, hanging the rain fly, sleeping bag, and clean laundry to dry. It wasn’t raining, but we were still in the midst of the days-long thunderstorm sweeping the region, so we decided to camp there, right in the middle of the gazebo. (We could’ve walked to the lodge two miles down the road but couldn’t find it in our hearts to spend $90 on the thing.)
Feeling a tickle in my throat, like the beginning of a cold, I almost chastised myself for eating too much sugar. But then I remembered I could trust myself: I had walked 500 miles.
In the morning, crows cawing. Woodpeckers working. A single duck incessantly quacking. Through shining sun and spiderweb superclusters, we walked on.
We stopped briefly in a town called Cairo (population 281 as of 2010 census). Spoke with an old but robust, white-whiskered hiker practicing for the Appalachian Trail. Went to the diner, where the middle-aged waitresses went back to smoking cigarettes immediately after serving their only customers (us). Finally, ran into another strange hiker, wearing spectacles and suspenders, wielding a smooth tall staff with a little wooden figure carved on top. He said, “Let me guess: you’re walking across America!”
We walked on.
A young, neon orange lizard sat statuesque in the mud, playing dead for a living. Pale blue butterflies flapped their wings excitedly, no capacity for caution. Iridescent green beetles buzzed silently on their way, not pestering everyone like the flies of myriad size and the water-skating mosquitoes. One scared small tortoise, not fleeing nor retreating into his moss-covered shell, waited and watched patiently like his neon cousin.
Suddenly, thunder and lightning.
Maybe the storm rolled in quickly. Maybe the wall of forest and hill prevented us from seeing it coming. Maybe we were just inexperienced. Likely a result of all three, we found ourselves trapped in a torrent of rain and thunderbolts.
Desperately, we ran for cover. A bridge! We raced to the small structure over Goose Creek. It was an aptly named creek, we discovered, spotting a large goose just a couple meters away. For a long time we gazed at each other, eye to eye, until I finally took a couple steps back. An air about her — firm, fierce, sedate — convinced me she was a mother. We respected each other’s shelters.
As quickly as it came, the storm faded. Lizards and toads splashed happily.
The quick but fearsome event would turn out to be just the first lesson in a brutal study: A child of the San Francisco Bay Area is not prepared for the intensity of a real thunderstorm. It rains but only threatens thunder and lightning once or twice a year — rarely does it actually strike. And though we experience heavy El Niño seasons every few years, that just means endless rain and wild winds.
Thunderstorms on the walk helped me better understand how weather works. Or rather, how it doesn’t work. It’s not clean and easy, the way you see it illustrated in books. Rain doesn’t “fall from a cloud” — it is the cloud. With thunder, there is no physical bomb in the sky exploding — the sky itself explodes. Even among those who live in the Midwest or go camping, you can usually plan well enough to make sure that you’re inside a car or a building when the thing detonates. Not so when you’re living on the road.
For the first month-plus of the walk, we had walked through snow, slept in rain, and skirted the occasional heavy storm. But I had never experienced what had just happened, thunder arriving right over our bare heads. Shaken, I checked my phone. To my distress, the forecast called for a 100% chance of thunderstorms all night long.
Weather forecasts are another thing I began to understand more fully on the road. A 50% chance of rain every hour of the day could mean that it will either lightly rain all day or not even rain at all. By the same token, a 50% chance of thunderstorms all day means the thunderstorms may or may not happen, and, if they do, nobody knows exactly where. Moving up the scale, a 100% chance of thunderstorms but only for an hour or two means the storm is definitely coming, but nobody knows exactly where. But a 100% chance of thunderstorms every hour means everybody is fucked. That was our situation.
I looked into the mother goose’s eyes, and tried to take some of her courage.
That evening, to make matters worse, I saw that the National Weather Service had issued a warning for flash floods — another weather phenomenon easy to define but difficult to actually understand. It’s literally just “a rapid flooding of low-lying areas.” We weren’t camped in a low-lying area, but that didn’t stop me from imagining a nearby stream expanding into a river, sweeping our tent in the middle of the night, channeling us away as we struggled in the darkness of our bags, bodies, and canvas, fighting for air and an exit. Panicked, I felt for my knife and put it in my pocket.
“Aren’t you afraid?” I asked Natalie.
“What can we do?” she said.
A few minutes later, she fell asleep.
What could we do? I had never camped in a thunderstorm before, so I started desperately searching for answers. I stared into the bright white light, always optimistic that the next website would have a unique perspective, helpful tips for surviving a thunderstorm while camping. Instead, my heart trembled at the recommendations.
Go indoors.
Don’t be caught outside.
Plan ahead.
Standing near a tall tree won’t save you.
Standing away from tall trees won’t save you.
The poles in your tent won’t save you.
Plan ahead.
Don’t be caught outside.
Go indoors.
In plain English, every time: “There is nowhere safe outside during a thunderstorm.”
I kept searching and reading. I read about people killed by lightning. I read about people who survived lightning strikes completely unscathed. I read about people who survived lightning strikes with indefinite brain damage. I wondered which we would be. In a brief moment of something like joy, I realized that, if it did strike, it would at least strike us both at the same time.
But we survived.
Honestly, I had thought we would die. While it wouldn’t have surprised me to know that I’d been closer to death at other times in my life, I had never before been so conscious of the chances while it was happening — and for such an extended period of time.
Just before dawn, the final bout of thunder and lightning rolled through, flooding water, throwing hail, flashing us blind, and shaking the earth. Even Natalie woke up, eyes wide with wonder, as we lay sloped on the wet hill directly underneath the muzzle of heaven’s double-barreled shotgun.
Once it passed, I scampered out of the paper tent like a quivering rodent. We packed our things quicker than ever, and walked on.
“Go and mix
a bowl and serve the wine to all our guests,
so we may offer drink to thundering Zeus
who blesses those in need.”
Book 7, The Odyssey, Homer, translated by Emily Wilson.
