Peeling Shrimp in a Thunderstorm
Hi! I’m Sasha. I traveled full time in an RV for two years and write stories you can read in three minutes or less. It would be so lovely if you subscribed.
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Last night the rain came down in thick sheets across our yard. We spent the last four days digging out trenches to put in culverts and ditches to collect the water and redirect it off the street which is becoming more like a mud pit than a road. Pigs would go wild for our road.
I was exhausted by five last night and the rains started promptly at six, right on time, fifteen minutes after the dog alerted me that the thunder was beginning.
It reminded me of a time somewhere down in Louisiana, sometime in spring 2019.
I had gone on a hike earlier in the morning, stopping to photograph leaves bigger than my arm, and small snakes curled up beside the pathway. The South sounds differently than up North, even in the wilderness. Louder. The bugs cry out in rhythm, blurring the specific noises that I’d be able to pick out in a different, drier environment. The hot moisture muffles the particular edges of noises, creating a crescendo of cicadas and frogs in a conductorless choir.
By early afternoon, we were one of three RVs left in the largest state-run campground in Louisiana. Not everyone loves wading in the thickness that is hot soupy weather as much as I do.
Jeremiah had left abruptly when I announced I wanted to make some for jambalaya. “I’ll go find some shrimp,” he said, and the dog plopped into the car beside him.
“Be quick,” I responded, “the rain is going to be here soon.”
When the skies opened up, I was convinced our motorhome was going to float away. The rain splattered with force upon the ground, shoving their body of drops into the dirt until saturation forced it to roll down the hill. Jeremiah came back 20 minutes later with a 6-pack of localish beer and a plastic bag of shrimps the size of my left arm.
“They had these at the closest gas station! It was painted on a wooden sign, so they have to be good!” — not sure about that rationale — “They’re not shelled though,” he hollered through the rain and motioned to the closest garbage can as I stood at the screen door getting splashed by droplets. He handed me the beer, and I shoved on my previously warmed hiking boots before joining him in the ever-growing mud.
When it comes to a motorhome smelling like shellfish or getting drenched in the hot rain, I’ll take the latter.
We huddled together over a garbage can lid, the dog shivering between us when the thunder boomed, our bodies trying to guard the crustaceans against the onslaught. Within seconds, hair plastered itself to our faces and my socks sloshed in my boots.
“I’m going to get trench foot,” I said to Jeremiah, who laughed.
There we were, in the absolute rain, peeling shrimp shells from their gray bodies. Even in that moment, we knew how ridiculous of a memory we were making. But when you want jambalaya, you have to make it work, thunderstorm or not.
That night our motorhome was steamy with the warmed rice stew, the condensation from our soaking clothes adding to the moisture. I have never enjoyed a jambalaya so much as I did that night, the shrimp tasting of rainwater and spices, my hair wrapped up in a towel as the lightning cracked nearby.
My hiking boots would live to see many more hikes, many more adventures, and they were my companions yesterday as I filled irrigation trenches, though I’m not sure we’ll ever need to water anything here down in the South. Things just stay a little wetter down here than I’m used to.
Thanks for traveling with me,
Sasha