Making the Most of a Rainy Vacation

It had rained for three days straight, and the roads were beginning to flood. My husband and I and our three young children were trapped by an extended spring downpour in the most beautiful valley in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  Here’s how our family survived a vacation “ruined” by rain.

Making the Best of the Worst

It had rained for three days straight, and the roads were beginning to flood. My husband and I and our three young children were trapped by an extended spring downpour in the most beautiful valley in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

It was romantic at first, with all of us crowded on the floor in front of the fireplace, playing Monopoly and munching on warm homemade cookies. I think if it had just been my husband and I, we’d have been happy to stay inside forever. But young children can only stand so much Monopoly. And we eventually ran out of cookies.

The next morning, we dared the muddy drive up and out of the valley and made our way to nearby Hill City. We were astonished to see how much water was running through town. My kids were highly amused by a pair of ducks floating across what had last week been a soccer field. The river was so swollen that whole sections of road in town had been submerged and blocked off.

We were determined to make the best of it, but everything seemed to be closed. The trails were too muddy for hiking or horseback riding. The historic train ride through the hills had closed. We tried to visit Mount Rushmore and were told that the iconic faces couldn’t be seen through the dense cloud cover. It seemed we were doomed to spend our vacation fighting cabin fever.

For one brief conversation we considered returning home. But, after checking the weather, we found the the rain was just as bad in our own corner of the world, and getting there would be more hazardous than staying put. So we stopped at a store and bought rainy-day supplies.

Loading the car with books, crayons, scissors, construction paper, glue, and some groceries, we returned to the cabin with big plans for creativity and meaningful interaction. There was no cell service and no internet in the valley, but I had read that a technology break can be good. And what is technology but the brain child of imagination anyway? We had plenty of that, and high hopes (or at least a morbid curiosity) to see if we could enjoy our vacation in spite of the weather.

I’ll admit, I was expecting it to get old, fast. I was expecting whiny kids, and a damp car ride back home again within 24 hours. As I said, my husband and I were perfectly happy to cuddle up with a long book and read until the rain stopped, but I couldn’t expect such behavior from three kids under ten.

However, as time passed, I was surprised at their good humor and inventiveness. My son took half a day to construct an enormous apple tree, and challenged everyone to write something thoughtful on an apple to glue to the tree. (That apple tree is now hanging on the wall in his room.) My husband demonstrated his latest fitness obsession – pullups – and then lifted all three kids to do pullups from the beams overhead. The pictures are priceless.

Everyone dove into their pile of books with gusto, and the kids begged me to read fairy tales to them late into the night. The girls created complex story lines for their stuffed animals to rehearse and perform. Memories piled up, one after another. And when they truly needed some fresh air, they found that hide-and-seek is just as fun among the rocks of South Dakota in the rain, as it is in stuffy broom cupboards at home.

My husband and I talked. Really talked. And discovered, again, that we really do like each other. We drummed up ideas, solved problems, and learned things about each other that we probably would have missed if we’d given up and taken the stressful drive back home again. The whole thing felt very much like a family renaissance, and when it was time to go home again, that same energy spilled into our everyday routines and gave them new life.

I mention all this because I find it astonishing. I’m astonished to discover that our family relationships are hardy enough that we can tolerate close-quarters like that for so long. I’m astonished at the depth of resources in both spirit and mind that each individual carries with them, just waiting to be used. I’m astonished most of all that many of this summer’s sweetest memories came from what was basically, a rainy vacation and a disastrous trip.

And with this new perspective, I’m looking at other “disasters” in my life, and wondering if they too hold a secret key to greater understanding, keener feeling, deeper relationships, and treasured memories. I even hope, just a bit, for a storm to ruin our next vacation.