Day Four - Thunder Rolls!

Today we headed toward some unknown territory. An aquaintance had told us about the Ruby
Reservoir where you can pick up garnets along the shore, so that became our new destination.

Heading east from Phillipsburg you climb up a gorge that twists and turns with steep dropoffs and sheer walls. A river seemingly bursts out of a canyon wall near the top. Then the world flattened out for a bit as we drove through Anaconda, Butte, and up over the Continental Divide. The landscape changes pretty dramatically to an arid region at that point. At Whitehall we headed south.

The weather forecast for the Virginia City area, which is near Ruby Reservoir, was for 80%

precipitation. Well that sounded like typical Western Washington weather, so no worries... As we got closer to the reservoir we could see storms with lightning and rain squalls rolling through that area. Yep, that is where we were headed! However, we found the reservoir easily and the road was fine. A campground was indicated on the map, but there wasn't a sign for an official camp. About 2 o'clock we did see some RV's and tents pitched near a boat ramp, so we headed for that area.

A well used dirt track followed the bluff which was about 30 feet above the lake. There were scattered rock fire rings and holes dug in the dirt to level out trucks and trailers. We pulled into a spot between a couple other RV's, took a few minutes to get the camper level,  and called it camp. We could see a storm across the reservoir with periodic lightning flashes, so out came our camp chairs and my camera for a ring side view to the storm across the lake...

However, the storm didn't stay on that side of the lake for long! Within minutes we felt rain drops. Then we saw the water start to gather whitecaps from the wind. By
the time we threw the chairs in the back of the truck and went to climb into the camper it was blowing so hard it was difficult to hold the camper door open enough to get inside.

Then the wind really started to howl! Rain pounded the roof and sheeted across the windows. We sat at the dining table looking out

the window while the camper rocked and rolled. The wind screached louder, the rain pounded harder, lightning flashed, and thunder roared right above us! The wind picked up sheets of water on the lake and we could see those swirling sheets across the lake moving right toward us. We looked at each other and talked about options... Should we stay in the camper? Could we even get the door open? If we went outside, could we stand up? Will the truck and camper turn over (Pat assured me that it weighed too much)? Should we just wait and see what happened?

I had a death grip on the table while Pat's comment was, "Wow, it's windy." Hmmm, that probably tells you who the worrier in the family is!

About 15 minutes later the wind and rain started to let up. We still saw flashes of lightning and heard
thunder rumbling further down the valley, but the camper wasn't rocking anymore. Boy, was I relieved! We peered out the window and could see the whitecaps starting to lay down. Another 10 minutes and Pat was able to look out the camper door where we could see one of the tents had been knocked down, but another one was still standing. What a good advertisement for that tent company.

Within a half hour we could see another squall rolling across the lake again. This one didn't have near the wind, but along with rain it had hail which bounced off the lake. Again, the storm lasted about a half hour before letting up. We poked our heads out and saw another storm on its way...

That pattern continued for about four hours. After that, the skies remained cloudy with occasional sprinkles, but not the severe wind and rain of that first blow. Whew! We were sure glad we weren't

canoeing or tent camping. The sun broke through the clouds about 7 and glinted off a calm lake. We didn't get a pink sunset, however the clouds had silver lining their edges which we took to mean the morrow would be calmer.

The following morning we had blue sky and sunshine!