It was Friday afternoon and I was so desperate to get out of the cities you could've shot me out of a cannon.
I unfortunately hit the 'Summer-Friday northerly Minnesotan migration' and got caught in a net of trailer-hitched fishing boats, family minivans packed full of harpies, and the poor saps who live in the northern exburbs just trying to fall into their first bottle of the weekend.
After cutting myself free I was so late to the Wild River state park all I got were smirks at the front desk of the ranger station as I came in wearing nothing but a helmet and an exhausted look of terror as the rain-soaked breeze followed me in.
They let me loose in the park and I found myself stumbling around in the dark like an animal as the clouds rolled in. The sun long-gone, I realized I better start running. It was 2 miles from my bike to my site and luckily I set my bastard of a campsite up before sneaking in the front entrance.
It was then I saw my first flash of lightning. My senses piqued and I began to Sprint like a madman carrying nothing but a radioactive can of 40% deet and a sack of rain gear in case the monsoon began.
I stepped in horse shit several times. In a dead sprint it doesn't seem to stick to you, it splats like a pumpkin dropped from a rooftop. It was so damn dark I nearly barreled my head up the ass of a deer.
I stumbled onto my site as the rain began to fall and I hunkered down so hard you couldn't have scraped me up with a crowbar. The monstrosity of a storm rolled in bringing rain in buckets, wind in sheets, and debris in waves.
Lightning struck so close to my tent it could have dynamited the whole damn campsite out across the St. Croix River as chunks of old Jimbo and what's left of my motocamping gear would've washed up in Wisconsin.
It was 9pm and I opened up Hunter S. Thompson's "Proud Highway" while the hurricane-like vortex outside battered my tent like a drum, the only thing holding it down was my 200-lb Irish ass and a prayer.
Without cell service I couldn't tell if the pummeling outside was the worst of it or the next best thing. Se la frickin' vi.