How S.O.A.R’s South West Coastal / NOTHING BUT G’S Got stuck in a desert rain storm By Laith Saffo

We thought it would be safe to avoid snow and bad weather. After we got out of the bottom of the Grand Canyon we drove down the mountain to lower elevation to Winslow and stayed at a free camp site. If you know the band The Eagles they talk about Winslow being a mighty fine sight to see. Now it is in shambles and half the places are out of business and rundown.

We then decided we wanted to have a warm and great rest of our trip. The field staff and Jeremy had a deal with us; If we drove back to the desert to lost Dutchman, where we camped the first night we got A.Z. when we got to Lost Dutchman and did one day of school and a half day, we could go to the Recreation Center. The first time we stayed there we thought it would not rain so we did not used tents but it did rain and we all got soaked. We were all talking about how it might rain again but people said it would not and not to jinx us. I said, after dinner when it was dark that it would rain because it looked like it. I remember stuff from a summer class in grade school about weather. That night it rained and we got soaked in our tents. The wind was hard and people said at times it blew well over 50 miles an hour. When we got up we packed up our tents and sleeping stuff as fast as we could and went to a Laundromat to dry our tents and other wet stuff and to change and eat breakfast.

Afterwards we went to the cool library to do school. After school we went to the a covered awning, part of the Recreation Center building, to eat dinner and do nightly meeting and nightly stuff so we did not get wet even though it was still raining. That night we had to go back to that camp site even though it was raining worse than it was the first night. Just to let you know, we always try to wear rain-gear in the rain.

When we got to camp we got out really fast of the big Black Beast, that’s what we call the van, and as fast as we could we set our tents up in the rain. It was so windy and wet we had to use rocks to hold all of the tents down. Isaac Inglis and my tent blew away and Ben and A.C. caught it in the air. Even though it was raining everyone was laughing and making jokes while we set up the tents. The staff helped us set up our tents to make it go faster so we did not get as wet. When we woke up it was raining so we packed up and went to the Laundromat again and the library like the day before. After a half day of school we went to the Recreation Center, had fun, and took showers. When we went back to camp that night it was pretty dry so we had a good night sleep and we woke up early to go the airport to go back to N.C..