My wife and son and I got to the Davidson River Campground rather later than we had intended due to the very severe weather that took place when the warm front we'd been living under collided with a strong cold front. We had to drive through torrential rains and slow traffic. Because of this, we got to the campground just at dark (on the 13th) to discover that contrary to the Davidson River website, they do NOT have full hookups. So we had to boondock it. No big deal. The site we chose (the campground was almost empty) had a gravel pad and an asphalt run. Because it was getting dark, I decided to set up the
Casita on the asphalt run rather than toil with backing onto the gravel pad in the dark.
The next morning, we awoke to what I later learned were 77mph wind gusts. Trees were coming down all around in the forest. As we sat in our
Casita we heard a tremendous crash outside our trailer. Going out, we saw a large white pine had almost hit us. And we saw that if we had parked where I'd first intended to park, the tree would have smashed full into the trailer, destroying it and possibly killing us.
A very close call.
Here's the photo of the white pine beside our trailer. The Forest Service came by an hour later and carved it up into firewood. You can see the gravel pad I would have parked on quite plainly.