From Sad to Sunny
"Seriously? It's raining?" My cousin Kiri complained.
She was right. It was pouring. The raindrops leaked down the window and the entire car was freezing. If you looked down at the road, you could see that there were puddles scattered along the ground and the car splashed through them easily.
Kiri's dad tried to calm her down, but she wasn't having it. I agreed with her though, it was a pretty terrible day for rain.
Today was the first day of camp at LOMC. Emma started at LOMC, then Kiri joined her, and about three summers later I started going. It was my third year.
Of course, it had to rain on the day we got dropped off and had to deal with all our stuff. Plus, there was dirt and dust everywhere, and now it was mud. Great. Just great.
Suddenly, we took a sharp turn onto a side dirt road with a wooden sign that read LOMC in big gold letters. The sign was soaked. The ground was soaked. Everything was soaked. The second you stepped out into this weather you were sure to be soaked and freezing in 5 seconds flat.
"We're here!" Kiri's dad said cheerfully while we pulled up the short dirt road. Emma, Kiri and I were definitely excited to be there, but the weather wasn't exactly ideal.
The car pulled into a parking space and shut off. Now all we could hear was the bitter rain pelting the windows.
"Is anybody else cold?" I asked. Kiri and Emma both agreed, but Kiri's dad seemed optimistic. Great.
"Okay, lets check you in first and we'll come back to get your things," he said, already stepping out of the car in a attempt to get us to follow. We all groaned. Although at the same time we agreed silently that we might as well just go.
The second I stepped out of the car I was immediately pulled by the freezing wind. I was not only being practically blown away by it, but the rain was worse than it seemed from the safety of the car. The second you felt a raindrop, it almost numbed you. And the rain wasn't just falling, it was being whipped into your face by the wind like a tornado.
Emma jumped out of the car and she reacted just as I expected.
"I'm FREEZING!" She shivered. "Lets go to the pole barn! At least there won't be as much rain!"
The pole barn was a huge barn with open walls and a roof supported by wooden poles. Picnic table were placed along the inside, and that's where we had to go to check in. We all ran through the rain to the pole barn, where Kiri's dad began the long process of checking us in.
"Helen! Emma!" Kiri called from the side of the barn. "Look over here!"
"Where?" I said, shivering.
Kiri laughed. "C'mon!"
I walked over to where my cousin was standing. She was in the middle of a circle of brightly colored picnic tables.
"Look at this." Kiri said, smiling. When I looked around, I saw that each of them were uniquely painted with patterns and names. It was a myriad of bright colors and last-minute additions, with splatter paint and mixed-up names placed in every nook and cranny of the tables.
"Do you recognize any of them?" I asked. I saw that some were from the year before, but a lot of them were from this year.
"Some of them," Kiri replied. "But there's a lot of new ones, too."
Emma walked over. "Hey you guys, look at the sky!"
Kiri and I turned to look out. "What about it?"
Emma laughed. "It stopped raining! And look at that rainbow!"
She was right. It had stopped raining, and now the entire world sparkled with the raindrops. There was a vivid rainbow that looked like a mix of paint across the sky.
"It's so pretty!" Kiri's voice sounded like it was smiling.
I looked back at the sky. The rainbow was still there, and it remained there for the rest of the day. Even the sun was a shining penny in the sky. We had started the day with a gloomy, wet rain, and we had ended it with a beautiful sunset.
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