Au Sable Storm
Once we hit the road today, Thelma the camper attached to the loaded truck, Mike said something to me that brought up a ton of memories about the place we are headed to. I grew up camping on this river, the Au Sable, and I have only missed a few years since I was 6. I'm the last of my family to go this consistently. Sissy is the reason I still go, but this year she is staying home to care for Grannie. We will not have a boat, but we do have a decently swimmable site. Mike told me, "I would love to experience a crazy storm up there, like the ones you've told me about."
The Au Sable runs from the northern middle of Michigan's lower peninsula to Lake Huron. We stay roughly a 30 minute drive from the town of Oscoda, off of National Scenic Byway River Road. There is no cellular service, no running water, and no electricity. We were lucky enough that they put in very nice vault toilets about a decade ago. Before that, we had to dig holes. My family started out camping on the south side of the river, where we will be this year, but my favorite spots are on the north side and without vault toilets. Everything you pack in must be packed out.
When I was about 8 years old, a storm rolled through that I will never forget. We had no way of knowing, other than by the weather forecast in the newspaper that my aunt's husband went to town for every morning. He would get up before everyone, make coffee, and drive about 50 minutes round trip just to have a newspaper to read. That day called for scattered storms.
We'd already been out in the boat and swimming, and we all had come back for lunch when the sky started to get dark and the wind picked up. My entire family was there that year, before they all slowly started trickling away from the yearly trip, spread across two adjoining campsites. I think Grannie might have even been there. If she was, it was her last year crawling into that tiny hexagonal brown tent. My aunt and uncle didn't have time to tie their boats to shore properly before we all retreated to our tents.
My mother and I scrunched together in a blue hexagonal tent, maybe four feet tall and seven feet across, and as the wind whipped the nylon around us, rain started to sneak past the fly that hardly covered the top mesh window. We covered up in bed and listened to the trees rustle. I'm not sure now how long the storm lasted, but I want to say we were in the tent for at least an hour. It could have been two.
Once it seemed clear, we opened up the windows to air out and pulled ourselves out of the soggy bedding. Everyone slowly emerged from their tents to survey the damage done to our makeshift home. Towels that had been on a clothing line were in the trees. The aluminum kitchen table was turned over, everything scattered in the mud. We walked over to the other site to find that my aunt and her husband had survived the storm by three feet. If the tree had fallen at a different angle, they likely would not be alive today.
Luckily, the boats were mostly okay. Their bilge pumps were busy for a long time, and they had beaten against shore quite a bit. Once it was determined that we were all okay, we decided to take a walk to see if any other campers needed help and to check out the damage. Branches had fallen all over, and the two-track dirt road was now pure mud. We walked along the side, past other campsites, and waved to other campers. Most of them were okay, just a bit shaken like us.
One of the last sites on the peninsula had a large motorhome parked on it. A tree, probably two feet in diameter, had fallen across the middle of it, and completely smashed in the sides. I remember being shocked at first glance of it, and the adrenaline rush of seeing my aunt's husband, a firefighter, running up to it yelling to see if anyone was inside. After walking around the outside of it, and calling for people, he determined that likely no one was inside. A nearby camper wandered over and said that the family had left it parked the day prior. Looking back, I'm thankful it wasn't worse.
A second storm started to roll in and we all decided to take shelter in our cars for this one. It did not last as long as the first, and later we all made fun of ourselves for being so stupid for not seeking proper shelter for the first one. We learned later that tornados had touched down on the north side of the river, less than half a mile from where we were huddled in nylon barriers. I'm not sure if I would like to relive that storm, but I do love a good show of lightning and rain.
