Half the field had fallen asleep after 2:30 am. Only a select few were still walking, but luckily there was a free coffee stand open for the whole 24 hours. Even the 6 of us kids were still up and about trying to stay up until at least 4:30. We walked a bit more, but soon we got super tired and decided it was time to take a break. We had all set up camp underneath a green E-Z Up. It was cold and windy, but the warmth of our sleeping bags took care of that. Ryan was posted in a fold out lounge chair, Kai, Lucy, and I were sprawled out on the lime green tarp, Mrs. Davis curled up under the booth table, and Mr. Alvarez was laying just outside of the shelter of the tent.

It was late. Around 3-ish maybe. We had already walked at least a trillion or so laps. 18 hours and 12 cups of coffee later I was disappointingly unable to fall asleep and what I saw would make the night a zillion times more interesting. It started to sprinkle and the sprinkling got heavier. The corners of the E-Z Up began to sink and leak. Nobody thought anything of it at first (mostly because we were either half or fully asleep). When the rain got heavier I started moving all the bags underneath the tent so they wouldn’t get anymore wet. That’s when Mr. Alvarez woke up. The tent kept dripping and eventually it got so bad that it just couldn’t be ignored… maybe it was just the coffee.

We scraped the water off the tent with lacrosse sticks. Frustratingly enough the water just kept building up. At this point everyone was awake trying to fix the problem. The tent frame wouldn’t rise or spread or move pretty much at all. The only thing we could do was get rid of it. Kai was pushing the water. I was holding the covering taught and pulled it down. Kai pushed the fabric up towards the edge and before I could move out of the way a waterfall of rain dumped on my head. I was completely soaked. My shoes were in puddles. My pants were drenched and my hair was dripping. It was awesome.

We all curled up in the middle of the tarp; unorganized and uncomfortable. About two hours later I woke up to a bright and shining sun, took a few walks around the track and when Mr. Alvarez’s run around the track ended we wondered how and why everyone else’s tent kept them dry and ours drooled all over us. The hunt was on. We looked under every tent. The Fire Department’s tent was exactly like ours, but we noticed something different about the frame. We ran to our booth, took off the cover and lowered the frame legs. It turns out the top of the tent extends high, so high that it was supposed to let water roll off the sides. I guess ours wasn’t fully raised.

Oh boy, what a night. But hey, it was so worth it.