Well I had been asking you to come out and see me this weekend at the Zumbro Bend Rendezvous in Mantorville. But Mother Nature had other ideas. The Rendezvous will be canceled for 2016 because as you will see in the pictures below there is a lot of water where the rendezvous should be.

This event takes place in the city park in Mantorville, adjacent to the Zumbro River. Quite a few people were in camp already Wednesday afternoon because we were going to be doing demonstrations for area schools on Thursday and Friday.

The river was up a little bit from last year when I got to camp Wednesday after work but nothing to worry about yet. We had our supper, had a camp meeting and talked about the possibility that we would have to bug out. And then we went about with the rest of the evening. About 9:30 I went off to bed and shortly after that the first storm came through. But it was nothing we could not handle. I heard a few people gathering in the tent next to me where camp leader Erik Petersen was. Some discussions were held but nobody panicking yet because the rain had let up.

A short time later the second wave came in and then my weather radio blared with a flood warning for areas to the west and I knew we were probably in trouble. About 45 minutes later the Mantorville Fire Department showed up and we were told it was time to go. The rain had let up in our area but due to the water that was going to be coming from up north we had to get out.

The fire department was great. Some had been through this with us in 2010. And they knew that there was a certain order that our camps had to come down and they created a sense of urgency but were not barking orders or anything like that. They were very helpful to all and within a short amount of time we were all out and on the way home.

I spent Thursday afternoon with the tent set up in my backyard with a propane heater in it drying it out.

John Anderson TSM Faribault Photo
John Anderson TSM Faribault Photo
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