It was a dark and stormy night...

I was reading an article on writing today and this famously trite novel opener was discussed. My brain started thinking about dark and stormy nights. Really, there's nothing wrong with a good story that happens to begin on a dark and stormy night. In fact, some stories would be really bad if they didn't begin on a dark and stormy night. Did you ever see the movie, "Clue"? I mean, if it started all bright and sunny, we'd all be horribly mislead and probably demand our money back.

Anyway...

I thought about a few of my own stories that have happened on a dark and stormy night. Not stories I've written, but stories from my own real life. And there is one particular dark and stormy night that really tops them all.

Only... it actually did begin bright and sunny. That would be because it began in South Africa.

My husband at the time and our children and I were visiting a friend in Cape Town and we had driven along the southern coast to spend a few days in the George and Knysna area. On our last morning there we drove inland a bit to the Cango Caves (amazing) and the Cango Wildlife Ranch where we rode ostriches and ate crocodile (chewy).

It was mid-afternoon by the time we were ready to make the several hour drive back to Cape Town. We all consulted a map and found that there was a little road that seemed to take a shortcut that connected us up with the main highway on a diagonal, rather than driving all the way back down to the coast and then along the coastal highway. We turned onto the road.

After a few miles, the "road" turned to dirt. We decided to continue on it, thinking that since it was on the map, it must be fine. I stared around at the landscape of the Little Karoo Desert and didn't see much of anything. Except that our bright and sunny day... was slowly turning to a dark and stormy night.

I sat in the back seat of the car with my 4 month old son and 23 month old daughter on either side of me and asked if there were lions in the Little Karoo. My friend laughed nervously. That was my answer.

Black storm clouds rolled in as we continued to roll along our dirt road. I glanced at the fuel gauge and noticed that we had less than a quarter tank left. None of us had any clue how much longer we were going to be on our "shortcut" through the desert.

It was a dark and stormy night. A night as black as ink with not a light in sight other than our headlights and rain drops the size of golf balls. Very little fuel left and no idea where we were... I seriously thought that this dark and stormy night was going to be my last... when we finally hit a paved road again.

I breathed for the first time in over an hour as the lights of a place in the middle of nowhere dotted the side of the road. We stopped quickly to get gas and then continued on to Cape Town.

You think this is the end? Oh no... because the storm (of aforementioned dark night) became more furious as we drove. Lightning began to flash across the sky. It lit up a huge rock, the size of a volleyball, in the middle of the road... just before we hit it.

My friend held control of the car and got us to the side of the road. Then she and my husband got out to survey the damage. One tire was blown and the axle was damaged. In the driving rain, they got the spare tire on. They climbed back in, competely soaked, and we continued to drive slowly to Cape Town.

We arrived sometime in the very early hours of the morning and collapsed into bed. I thought again about how I had seriously thought that dark and stormy night was going to be my last.

But it wasn't. And the next morning dawned bright and sunny.