The next day, a downpour started sometime before I woke. When I woke up, I heard the wind whipping outside and rain slamming against the tent. I see D. Va looking outside through the tents door which has a clear plastic window. Outside, I see rain coming down diagonally and accumulating in small, muddy puddles.
"What are we going to do for breakfast?" D. Va asks with a little concern in her voice.
Outside, the supplies wagon is by the fire pit and both of us don't want to get wet.
"I got a plan," I respond with confidence, "If we jump up in the tent and move forward, we could inch the tent closer to the wagon."
"Great idea, Jason!" D. Va replies eagerly
"On the count of three, we will jump. One… Two… Three!"
Both D. Va and I jump up. We push up on the top of the tent causing the tent to rise. The stakes that hold down the tent easily come out because of how muddy it is. When we land, we found that we are an inch closer to the wagon.
"One… Two… Three!"
We jump again and get a little closer. We continue jumping until we get next to the wagon.
"Who's opening the tent and reaching out?' I ask D. Va
"Noses goes!" D. Va responds while quickly placing her finger on her nose.
"Fine…"
D. Va moves to the back of the tent to get as far from the entrance as possible. I unzip the door and the wind enters the tent with a wave of rain. I fight the wind and reach out and grab the handle of the wagon. I pull in the wagon and close the door as quickly as possible.
"What do you want for breakfast?" I ask D. Va while water is dripping off of me.
I start digging into the wagon to find food that we don't have to cook. I find two small one serving boxes of cereal and I pass one to D. Va. We eat together while staring out at the rain.
We finish eating and D. Va ask, "Do you think there is anything that will protect us for the rain in the wagon?"
"Let's take a look, " I respond
I look through the wagon and find two rain ponchos. I also find two pairs of boot and we put those on as well. We then slowly exit the tent into the pouring rain.
"How are we going to start a fire to cook lunch and dinner?" I aks D. Va.
D. Va takes some time to think while look at the soaked fire pit.
"We need to find a way to keep the fire dry. If we make a basic roof out of sticks, it could catch on fire."
I take some time to think while staring off into the woods. While I was doing this, I notice a fern with very large leaves which causes me to have a strike of brilliance.
"I know!" I tell D. Va with excitement, "We can tie those huge leaves together and hold them up with sticks. The leaves are too green to burn, as well."
Before D. Va could respond, I run back to the tent and find string in the wagon. I run over to the fern and start grabbing the leaves. I tie the ends of the leaves together and use four sticks as a frame. I run back to the fire pit and stick four long stick into the ground and then tie the frame to those sticks. This creates a roof for the fire and a little room for people on the edge. Both D. Va and I roll the logs close to the fire so they will stay out of the rain.
"Now we have to wait for the fire pit to dry which should work out perfectly because we have about four hours to lunch." I tell D. Va
"What do you want to do in the free time?" D. Va inquiries
"Want to collect a pile of sticks for this fire and many others?"
"Sure, this will make our lives easier in the future."
Both D. Va and I patrol the forest for sticks. I set out our pot to collect rain water as well. When we finished, we collected a modestly sized mound of sticks. Even after we collected the sticks, we still have a few hours to kill. Both of us sit down and D. Va puts on a bored look. D. Va surveys the surrounding forest. The rain is still coming down as hard as it has been which has been creating some fairly large puddles around our spot. D. Va notices that a large puddle on the path that our spot was next to. D. Va gets up and runs to the puddle. She leaps into the air and lands in the puddle creating a mighty splash. I join her and we both jump in the puddle. We spend the next four hours goofing off in the forest. When the time has come for lunch, we head back to the firepit.
"How are we going to start the fire with all of this wind?" D. Va asks
"You can block the wind for me while I lit the fire." I respond,
I start setting up the fire pit using the sticks we collected earlier while D. Va stands next to the fire. I lit the fire which then starts to grow. The fire eventually grows to a decent size so D. Va and I back off and sit on our logs. I pour a glass of water for D. Va and myself using our rain water. We use the rest of our water to cook raman over the fire. The rest of the day consisted of D. Va and exploring the woods.
