Big Wind

June 21, 2026

The thing about southwestern Minnesota is that it's mostly treeless prairie. Treeless prairie gets windy. On our second night, after a nice day of hiking among quartzite cliffs, a storm blew in.

By "blew in," I mean it surged without warning, bringing billion-mile-an-hour winds that ripped the tent stakes out of the ground. The tent rolled down the road like a tumbleweed with our shit still inside.

It's just a story we tell now, but Jesus Christ. Have you ever had to lasso a loose tent containing a queen-size air mattress?

When we finally caught it (with help from some other campers), it was too late. The tent was broken, and we left in shame that same night.

(Getting home was a whole other ordeal: we popped a tire on I-90 and had to drive 200 miles home on a donut. I still have not replaced the hubcap that flew off in the process; I like to think it's still out there somewhere in the weeds. On the positive side, my friend is now married to the person whose tent we destroyed.)

Anyway, I bring this up because I had a near repeat of this experience recently. Camping in Wisconsin, my husband and I had a nice spot overlooking the Wisconsin River.

Everything was fine at first. Burgers, cribbage, campfire.

But then out of nowhere, the wind began to blow. One minute I'm poking the fire with a stick. The next, I have a death grip on the tent.

The wind had popped two stakes out of the ground and heaved the tent backward. It bent dangerously close to the fire, which with the help of the wind had doubled in size. We were left with no choice but to hold the twisting tent poles against the squall.

The tent poles strained against the force, and I thought for sure we had another broken tent situation on our hands. Or worse, a flaming broken tent situation.

But eventually the wind died down enough that we were able to collapse the tent and douse the fire. Nothing broken, nothing burned. Then ten minutes later it was calm again.

The strangest part was that no one else was around when this happened. It was a large, busy campground with lots of foot traffic.

But during the wind, there was no sign of anyone else. No shouts. No car doors slamming. Not even a paper plate blowing off of a picnic table. We struggled alone, which was fine. But we also had no one to commiserate with.

What if the big wind happened only to us?