Lord Willin' and the Creek Don't Rise

Common expressions. We say them everyday. Wake up one humid morning and suddenly your hair won't do anything. It's a Bad Hair Day, or maybe you just have Bed Head. Say it, and everyone knows what you mean. And once it happens to you, it's more than just an expression. It's reality.

And so it is with us.

We are traveling in the northeast and it's been a wet trip so far. We've had plenty of nice days, some exceedingly hot days, and our share of very wet days. Enough so that the expression "Lord willing and the creek don't rise"* has become more than just an expression.

We camped in Twin Bridge Campground in St. Thomas, PA. It has a sleepy little creek that runs through it. Until the night it poured for 2 straight hours. The next morning all of those people who had hoped to camp near a trickling brook had fled for higher ground. The brook was now a fast flowing river, running loose through the same place campfires had glowed the night before.


The next campground was better, but not by a lot. There was standing water in the first site we were given. Fortunately, they were able to move us to a drier one with hay spread out over the muddy ground.

The water was deep enough all through the site, Larry couldn't get out without boots.

Our third campsite was in Clinton, Connecticut at Riverdale Farm Campsites. When we pulled in we saw signs for tubing, and heard we could swim in the river or the pond. The pond is a small watering hole with a beach. A nice place for kids to play and parents to float on rafts. I had a hard time finding the river. It was a narrow stretch of water that wound its way through thick brush.

As I write this I am watching that "narrow" stretch of water. We've had a fair amount of rain this week, but today it is pouring non-stop. Flash Flood alarms are screeching over my phone like a police car siren in London. There is a beach ball stuck in the bushes on the other side of the creek, and a campsite electric pole on the bank. As I stand in the kitchen and look out the windshield, I've visually marked the position of that beach ball compared to the top of the electric pole. It has been steadily getting higher. It's not rising fast, and no one seems very concerned. But I'm watching it. Closely.

The rain has finally stopped, but best of all, the sun has come out and turned the world around. 

The sky is blue. The beachball has come loose from the bushes and has disappeared downstream. People are tubing, because, well, NOW, there's definitely a place to tube. And the creek has remained within its banks.

I have a new appreciation for the expression, "Lord willing and the creek don't rise." It's been a wet summer and I don't think its over. Tomorrow we move to another campground. That is.... Lord willing……

You can fill in the rest.

*The original expression, "God willing and the Creek don't rise" has been attributed to Benjamin Hawkins in the late 1700's, when he served as an agent between the U. S. government and the Creek Indians. However, I've only found one reference to that.  It has since developed into the colloquial expression we use today.