As the traffic in which her rental car was mired inched forward and stopped once again, Sally sighed in frustration, tapping her nails impatiently upon the rim of the steering wheel. She looked at the stalled lanes of traffic on either side of her, which would creep ahead or slowly fall behind as the glacier of cars crawled forward along the six northbound lanes of the west Beltway. So far, America seemed like one big traffic jam since she had picked up her rental car at the Washington airport. ‘No wonder the government here is in eternal gridlock,’ she thought to herself. ‘They understand nothing else!’ Her dream of getting to see the eastern American mountain ranges called Appalachia loomed large in her mind, however, and she knew that once she escaped the congestion around the nation’s capital, she would be free to cross the Piedmont of Virginia and see the far-off misty haze beckoning her on to the softly rolling mountain range rising up ahead of her. She brought her mind back to the situation at hand and rolled her eyes at American drivers’ vain competitiveness as they nosed-in in front of other cars ahead of her and cut across lanes, jockeying for a better position in a line of cars that seemed to move faster for a moment, only to watch the line they had just abandoned surge forward instead. Sally had her map laid open on the empty seat beside her, even though the car had a built-in GPS. She hoped none of the many smoke-belching trucks lumbering along around her would block her view of her upcoming exit sign, nor heavy traffic would keep her from changing lanes to take it. She turned on the radio, hoping to tune in to a local traffic report, but an endless series of commercials was all the radio seemed to offer this mid-morning. Sally wondered if traffic was always this bad around the Washington outer-belt or if there was an accident somewhere up ahead which caused all this congestion. She wished the roads here were more like the familiar roads of her Caithness County in northern Scotland; far fewer people and only the occasional sheep blocking her headway. But she had come to America to realize a dream, to wander the weathered ranges of the rolling mountains that had risen long ago in the old world, broken away with the shifting continents and drifted here to the new world. Worn down now to soft, tree-covered slopes that rolled in gentle waves from the mid-Atlantic states to Georgia, these mountains had once called many a Scots lad and lass to their wild highlands away from the madding propinquity of civilization. DC metro traffic, she decided, was just a small price to pay, weighed against the weeks ahead on the beautiful Appalachian Trail. Sally had been drawn to their romance as if by Ulysses’s sirens; the wild, open country so much like her Scotland home. Indeed, the ancient mountains themselves were once part of the very Caledonian range which still back-boned Scotland, although the Appalachians had broken away and slowly circled the world millions of years ago, leaving Scotland far behind, as it now was for her. For years they had beckoned, and the foot-trail rimming their crests was for her the focus of their allure. It seemed a marvelous wonder when she had heard about it in a documentary years ago. Its legend had filled her dreams until it was finally too much to resist any longer. Twenty-two hundred miles of wilderness footpath winding through the most beautiful crests of several scenic mountain-chains, running from New England down to the deep South, and Sally loved mountains! She knew she would never have time to undertake its entire length, a seven-month hiking journey, so she focused her attention on the middle, where the beautiful Skyline Drive began. Her conversations with Bethany had always filled her with a deep longing to explore the woodland peaks which once crowned the highlands beyond the colonial frontier of America. She always knew she would find adventure there, and now it lay ahead! At last! Traffic began rolling forward at a steady, if not rapid clip, and within minutes she spied her exit sign approaching on the right. She cautiously eased her car towards the right lane, and finally she was off Interstate-485 and onto the Custis Memorial Parkway headed towards the mountains. Her cell buzzed an incoming text message on the seat beside her, but she astonished herself by ignoring it and pressed on the accelerator to blend into the high-speed traffic heading west. She hadn’t eaten since the snack she grabbed on the airport concourse and she hoped she could make it halfway across Virginia before she had to stop for lunch. As she pulled into the left lane to pass a line of trucks, she caught up to an SUV with a cute little girl waving at her from the rear-window just ahead of her. She smiled and waved back. The child’s long, brown hair and animated smile reminded her of how she imagined Bethany must have looked as a little girl. For years she had known her website administrator only through the internet, though their close association had almost transcended the web and made her one of Sally’s closest friends – and fantasies! She had hoped Beth would be able to take some time off from work to meet up with her somewhere along her holiday itinerary in the Blue Ridge Mountains, but their vacation schedules hadn’t seemed to mesh this year. Sally pulled off to find a place to eat about an hour past noon, and she hoped the lunch crowds would be thinned out. America was filled with fast-food and ubiquitous restaurant chains with familiar names, but she preferred more interesting fare that wasn’t so standardized and predictable. She wasn’t even sure where she was but that was part of the adventure. She found a small mom-and-pop diner and pulled in. There was still quite a lunch-crowd, and she told herself that the locals probably knew this was a good place to dine. She was seated at a booth by the window, and looking out across the street, she saw a number of empty storefronts. The Great Recession had hit small-town America especially hard, and nowhere worse than out in the rural areas. She pulled out her phone and checked her messages. She tried to get out of the habit while she was abroad because of the international rates and tariffs, but at least she’d purchased a SIM card for her phone that allowed her to pick up an American carrier network. She had intended to use her smart-phone sparingly, not only because of the overseas rates but because she was on vacation and didn’t want her electronic connections to follow her around annoyingly. Sweet Whores, the lesbian social-network she had owned for years, could rest on Bethany’s shoulders for awhile. After a club sandwich and a bowl of soup which fell a bit short of her expectations, she threaded her way past a couple waitresses and went to the restroom in the back of the dining area. Two cute girls in their twenties were at the lavatory, giggling about something while touching up their make-up and sharing a cigarette. Sally slid past them and closed the door of the stall behind her. Their voices got low and they giggled some more, and Sally rolled her eyes at the immaturity of young girls in general and American girls in particular. She looked at some graffiti scribbled on the stainless steel divider and saw the name ‘Beth’ with a phone number below and a crude drawing of two splayed fingers with a tongue in between them. No, she thought to herself! It was impossible! Her friend lived hundreds of kilometers away from here on the other side of the mountains! It had to be another Beth. She wrote the number down on a notepad in her purse nevertheless. Sally washed her hands in the sink beside the two girls and asked them if they worked here in the diner. They never answered her question but told her they loved her accent and continued to gush about it in a charming accent of their own which, Sally assumed, all Virginians must have and not even be aware of it. The girls pulled up their boobs in their bras and admired their cleavage in the mirror esat escort as Sally excused herself and went out to pay her bill. As she waited for an older couple to settle their tab at the cash register ahead of her, she noticed the two attractive girls come out of the restroom, and they smiled and waved at her as they went out the front door. Sally wasn’t sure whether they were flirting with her or if all American girls were as friendly and flirtatious as her ‘Front Whore’. She pressed on for several more hours and watched the landscape rise and grow more rugged as she approached the foothills of the northern Shenandoah Mountains. The roads got curvy and though they were wider, Sally felt more like she did driving on the highland roads of Scotland. As she climbed into the foothills, she saw signs of the vast disparity between rich and poor in America. On the outskirts of towns were beautiful, gated homes set on well-manicured hillsides, but farther out, faded and rusting trailers were perched awkwardly on the slopes surrounded by run-down sheds and old, abandoned cars on concrete blocks. Billboards and signs were everywhere, blocking the scenery with commercial promotions for motel chains, tourist attractions, and Biblical passages preaching the agenda of the Pro-Life movement. Sally knew the divisions in America were more than economic and wondered how a nation that had once been the envy of the world was now so polarized and torn against itself. Poverty seemed to be everywhere. She stopped for gas, and as she was topping off her tank, a convertible pulled into the convenience-mart next to the gas-pumps and she recognized the two girls she had seen in the diner hours ago. She wondered if this was a coincidence or if they were following her. She closed her gas-cap, moved her car up beside theirs and went into the carry-out into which they had disappeared. She wandered down a couple of the store aisles, but they were nowhere to be seen. She spotted a cooler that was fairly inexpensive, and she thought it might come in handy on her trip, so she took it up to the cash register along with a pack of refrigerated bottled-waters wrapped in plastic. There was an ice machine just outside, and she got a bag of crushed ice to put in the cooler with her water, then loaded the cooler into the back-seat of her car next to some of her luggage. She got curious as to where the girls had disappeared, and she locked her car and went back into the carry-out. She checked out several more aisles, but they weren’t in any of them. Towards the back of the store, she saw the restrooms and slowly pushed into the one with the ‘Ladies’ placard on the door. She heard the sounds of moaning and froze so as not to make a sound. She stood just inside the door, making sure it didn’t make any noise when it closed, listening intently as the girls were obviously right around the corner of the tiled bathroom. The whimpering grew more intense as Sally stood there with her back up against the wall, not knowing whether to stay or leave. She was magnetized by the soft sounds of passion just hidden from her by a divider wall. She heard gasps and groans and knew the sound of a girl about to climax. She suddenly became aware of her own fingers, one hand at her breast and the other between her legs, rubbing in intense circles until her own breathing grew deep and heaving. She leaned out and moved towards the outer wall of the hallway getting as close to the end of the partition as possible and saw a wide mirror on the opposite wall. She silently edged far enough in so she could see the reflections of the two girls in the mirror. One was sitting on the wide counter in which the sinks were set with her skirt pushed up around her waist, and the other girl was kneeling between her widely-spread thighs, eating her out. The receiving girl had her eyes closed, whimpering and rolling her head side-to-side against the mirror. Sally suddenly realized that if the girl opened her eyes, she could probably see Sally staring at her from around the other side of the partition. She quickly stepped back out of sight with her back up against the wall again. She had a prurient desire to insert herself into their tryst while at the same time admonishing herself for even staying there listening. Sally was amazed at the girls doing it so brazenly in a public restroom where anyone could come in and catch them! She wondered if that was the idea and they were hoping to be discovered. She remembered how Bethany was just such an exhibitionist, and the daring things she said she did out in public! She peeked out again, unable to restrain her curiosity and watched as the girl on the floor now had the other girl’s breasts pulled out of her bra, caressing them as she licked her pussy deeply. Her nipples were clearly visible as Sally watched, and this time Sally didn’t even care if the girl caught her watching them. Sally realized her heart was now racing and wondered what she was going to decide to do. Her natural shyness had always kept her from doing these kinds of things herself, while she admired girls who were this free. She had always prided herself as being a lady, but her inner desires were anything but ladylike at the moment! Sally’s legs were trembling, and she didn’t know if it was from arousal or fear of being caught as a voyeur. The girl on the counter was obviously cumming now and she wondered if this was nearing its end or whether the other girl would be given her turn. Sally’s finger was now under her skirt and down her panties, fingering her swollen clit through her feathery cropped down. She suddenly realized that if she made herself cum, she might let out a whimper or a gasp that would give her away, but she was enjoying the moment too much to stop! Suddenly the door pushed inwards and banged hard against her, and she jumped, startled out of her auto-eroticism. An elderly woman pushed through the doorway, apologizing for bumping into her, and Sally heard the two girls inside scrambling madly to pull themselves together at the sound of the door hitting her. Sally was just as flustered as the two girls around the partition and beat a hasty exit around the surprised lady as she let the door swing closed behind her.Sally knew her noisy encounter with the lady had probably given the girls enough time to get their clothes pulled back into place, and she started smiling to herself at the absurdity of what had just happened. She wondered if the girls would realize that the commotion at the door meant there had been someone there inside the bathroom with them listening or watching them, so she quickened her pace towards the front of the store and almost laughed out loud while the check-out girl watched her in puzzlement as she rushed past on her way out to her car. Sally was miles away before her heart slowed down. But the next time, she resolved to be a little more daring! She could see the ridges of the mountains rising ahead of her in the distance and the road began to wind around the lower slopes, climbing to meet them. Another half hour passed as the elevations rose, and the little town of Linden was just this side of the mountain pass ahead. She was approaching the rounded crests of the Shenandoah mountains now, and she knew from her map that the Trail was coming up, crossing Route-66 west. The sign appeared: Appalachian Trail Parking. She pulled off and found a place to park under some trees near the trail entrance. It was getting towards late afternoon, and she figured she had enough hours of daylight left to reach the first overnight shelter on the trail. She unloaded her backpack and changed into her hiking shoes, put a few icy-cold bottles of water in her pack and locked up her car. She was off! This was just the closest section of the trail to reach by car on her first day, but she wanted to get a few miles of hiking under her feet to get herself accustomed to the climbs and descents on this lower section before driving south to etimesgut escort bayan take on the higher-altitude stretches. She’d read about the wayside shelters and wanted to spend her first night in one, just to acclimate herself to camping on the Trail. She crossed the road and headed south where the foot-trail rose gently to an elevation of twelve to fourteen hundred feet around the crest of one of the lower summits. She could still see farms far off in the distance in the vales below her, but soon the woods closed in upon the trail and she was under the canopy of the mountain forests. After a short climb, she reached the Jim Molly Denton way-stop and decided she could easily make the next shelter another few miles up the trail. In a couple of hours of hiking the gentle rises and falls through beautiful woods and short stretches of open meadows, she passed her first fellow hikers coming the other way on the trail and asked them how far it was to the the next shelter. In a moment she was alone again and the eight miles to the Tom Floyd Wayside Shelter would take her a couple more hours if she quickened her pace. She could get there before dusk she decided. Sally looked for a secluded place in the woods to pee and remembered the ubiquitous poison ivy plant native to North America. She was determined not to get an itchy rash on her privates, so she recited the old poison-leaf rhyme to herself: ‘Leaves of three, let it be! Leaves of five, let it thrive!’ Whether it was poison ivy, oak, or sumac, Sally did not want to accidentally touch the oily leaves and pulled her pants down in an open area bedded with dried pine-needles to relieve herself. She thought of all the pictures she’d seen of Bethany, posing naked in the woods, and she was half-tempted to strip completely, just to see what it felt like with the wind whispering through the trees overhead and between her thighs below. She thought it must feel exhilarating having her body naked and exposed to all of nature, but she decided not to press her luck on her first few hours on the Trail. It seemed secluded here, but you never knew how soon another pair of feet (and eyes) might come winding around the trail-head. She finished her business quickly and wiped herself dry with a large tulip-tree leaf. Another daring opportunity she had not availed herself of, she mused, and she was beginning to think she would never summon up the courage to walk through the woods completely naked! Shadows were growing long as twilight approached, and she was beginning to worry about reaching the next shelter-hut on the trail. The sun was setting low on the horizon, and the early evening sky glowed an orange-red through the trees. She had passed no one on the footpath since the couple who had told her how far the next shelter lay, and she wondered if they had underestimated the distance. She figured she could camp on the open ground if she had to, but she’d feel much safer elevated by the wooden platform of a shelter. She knew there were snakes in the mountains, but usually they stayed away from the trails, or so the guidebooks said. For the first time since she’d left Europe, she was questioning her resolve to hike the wilderness trail alone. Many did. The dangers were few, more imagined than real, but she would have been much happier if Bethany had been able to meet up with her and they had tackled the trail together. She smiled to herself at the thought, for she remembered reading in a survey somewhere on ‘Sweet-Whores’ that her Cherokee friend preferred staying in four-star hotels to camping out in the wilderness! What kind of Indian Princess was that? ‘Oh!’ She thought to herself in surprise as she almost passed the shelter by in the gathering twilight. It was slightly off the trail and marked by a small, carved wooden sign: ‘Tom Floyd Wayside Shelter.’ She was relieved she’d found it and slung her pack off her shoulders and onto the weathered wooden steps. No one appeared to be around, and she was both relieved and disappointed. She felt safer by herself, but there would be no one with whom she could engage in conversation through the long woodland night. She suddenly felt very isolated, but checked her phone and it still registered a weak connection with a tower somewhere along the highway she had left miles behind. She unlaced her hiking boots and sat on the stoop to pull them off. There was a map of the trail sealed under a Plexi-glas cover in a wooden frame nailed to the front wall of the hut. She tried to see exactly where she was but the shadow of the porch roof made it too dark to see clearly, so she gave up on map-reading until morning. By the edge of the clearing where the shelter stood, there was a hand-operated water-well pump with a catch basin under the spout, so she gave the lever a few stiff pushes and a stream of cold water eventually gushed into the basin and overflowed onto the ground while the water continued to flow out of the spigot. The pump soon lost its prime and she leaned down and splashed her face with the clear water pooled in the shell-shaped basin. Inside the rustic shelter she found a small table with a book secured on a chain and a cupful of pens. It was a registry-book of names and comments from hikers who had spent the night in the shelter over the past several months. Sally opened her ruck-sack and pulled out a flash-light to read through the entries. The guests were from all around America, even some from other countries. She was interested in the descriptive comments left by some of the signers. Most of the early entries mentioned the beauty of the trail as it wandered through the mountains and dales, and some were written in foreign languages, only some of which Sally could translate. She noticed a familiar word kept appearing in several of the entries: Träume in German, rêves in French… she read further and found the same references scattered through several English-speaking hikers’ remarks. A couple from Guadalajara mentioned ‘sueños extraños’ and Sally was intrigued.Dreams! Why did so many overnight guests mention having strange and vivid dreams? She turned the page to read more, but her flashlight flickered and went out before she could read through the rest of the entries. Sally found the similar experiences of so many hikers a bit strange and she was almost hesitant to close her eyes now, even though she was very tired. ‘What kind of dreams?’ she wondered. The night was warm and Sally was accustomed to sleeping in the nude, so she unrolled her sleeping-bag and pulled the zipper so the bag spread open like a book on the wooden sleeping platform. Since she was alone, she wasn’t worried about sleeping uncovered with only the thin mosquito-netting lining her sleeping-bag over her. She stripped off the rest of her clothes and walked out the doorway, daring to feel the ambiance of the forest in the nude. She loved the feeling! All around her tree-toads chirped in the darkness and various other night-sounds gave her an atavistic feeling of being one with nature. She had finally made it to the Appalachians, and the thrill of being naked under the forest canopy tempted her off the porch to walk a short distance down the Trail. She knew that if Bethany were here with her, she would certainly join her. She imagined them both strolling hand-in-hand down the forest path together in the nude. The pine needles and sandy soil scrunched beneath her bare feet, and she jiggled herself and bounced up and down to feel her breasts swing unrestrained in the forest twilight. After a deep breath of fresh mountain air, she felt the unexpected sting of a mosquito biting her on her ass-cheek, and she quickly decided to get back to the shelter and under the mosquito-netting. In the darkness, settling in comfortably under the sheer netting, Sally scratched the itchy bite on her ass a few times and fell into sleep. She had not been asleep long when she was startled awake by a shuffling sound on the porch. She wondered Escort etlik if a bear had come looking for food, and she instinctively pulled the other half of the insulated sleeping bag over her and scrunched herself up against the wall of the hut so she could look out towards the doorway. A shadow appeared and moved back and forth in front of the entrance to the shelter, and she felt around in the darkness for the flash-light or something else hard that she could throw or use as a weapon. The screen-door suddenly opened and stayed open, as something or someone held it from swinging shut on its spring. A loose backpack came sliding in across the floor, followed by what looked like a bed-roll, and Sally saw the vague silhouette of a woman’s body stop in the doorway, peering into the darkness inside.”Hello?” came a soft, almost hushed voice as the young woman stepped into the shelter with her. She appeared to be alone, so Sally replied to her from the darkness. “Oh!” the intruder said, startled. “I didn’t mean to scare you! I’ve been on the trail for hours looking for a place to sleep. I’m sorry to bother you, but is there room for me to crash here for the night?”Sally tried to light her flashlight, but the switch was stuck. She shook it and finally knocked it hard against the platform supporting her bedroll and it came on. She shone the light to her own face so her guest could see who she was talking to, and then flashed it around the small room until the newcomer could see the other platform on the opposite side of the shelter. Sally held the light for her while she unrolled her sleeping-bag and put her knapsack up on the shelf with her as she sat down. Sally widened the beam of her light to illuminate as much of the interior as possible and saw the other hiker was a fit woman of about forty years who, even in this dim light ,Sally could see filled out her blue jeans well. “Are we alone?” her new guest asked with a warm, friendly voice. “I wasn’t expecting anyone else to show up, so I’m afraid I’m not quite decent,” Sally confessed as she unfolded herself from the cover of the sleeping bag which was now getting quite warm. Her new companion glanced over at her through the sheer netting which was all that was between her nude body and her guest. “Oh, don’t worry about that!” She smiled. “I prefer sleeping that way myself. If you’ll just hold the light on for a minute so I can get out of my clothes and see where I’m stashing them.” The woman unbuttoned her shirt and adroitly slipped it off along with her bra and jeans, leaving her in nothing but a very scanty pair of panties which showed off her well-shaped derrière to good effect. Sally pretended not to look while the attractive, pony-tailed woman folded her clothes neatly in the corner and excused herself to go out to the pump and wash off. Sally suddenly wished she had taken the time to wash off her own body before climbing into bed too. After a few minutes her new room-mate returned and crawled into her sleeping-bag as Sally turned off her flashlight. “You’re an angel!” she thanked Sally from the darkness. “I’m glad I found you here instead of a couple of guys!” Sally told her the feeling was mutual and said goodnight. Sally’s curiosity always got the best of her, so in the darkness before they fell asleep, she asked her companion her name, where she was from, and how long she had been on the trail. She was surprised to learn that her companion was an experienced hiker and had been working her way up the foot-trail from the Smokies in North Carolina over the past few weeks. Her name was Ursyla and she found Sally’s story of being enamored with the Appalachians from her far-off home in Europe to be quite fascinating, and she shared with her some of the highlights she could look forward to seeing on various stretches of the south-bound trail. Sally told her she’d left her rental car less than fifteen miles up the trail to the north, and they agreed to hike together until Sally returned to her car to drive farther to the south of Virginia the next day.As they tried to fall asleep, Sally could hear her cabin-mate tossing on her bedroll and slapping her skin as she was obviously being attacked by mosquitoes. “Are you alright?” asked Sally. “No bug-netting?””Its ripped and full of holes!” lamented Ursyla. “Last night I woke up from the strangest dream and clawed my way out of it before I realized where I was! I haven’t been able to patch it yet or get a new one.” Sally considered what she had said about her dream and asked her if she had had any other strange dreams before she got to this stretch of the foot-trail. Ursyla told her it had just started happening when she had gotten halfway through the Shenandoahs and Sally wondered if she should tell her about the other trail-diary entries she had read about similar occurrences. She decided it was best not to scare her with ‘ghost-stories’ before bedtime, and she offered to share her mosquito-netting with her so she could get a comfortable night’s sleep before their journey up the trail tomorrow. Ursyla demurred, saying she didn’t want to impose and crowd Sally in her bed. Sally didn’t want to seem to be pressing her into the intimacy of sharing her bed so she settled back down again to sleep. Just as she was dozing off, Sally heard a sharp slap, followed by “God-dammit!” Ursyla sighed in exasperation, and Sally ordered her over to join her under her mosquito-netting. The platform upon which Sally’s bedroll was positioned was no wider than a single-bed, so Sally had to scoot against the shelter wall to make room for her sleep-mate. Sally had never shared a bed with a complete stranger before but she knew neither of them would get any sleep unless Ursyla could get some respite from the mosquitoes. “You sure about this?” she queried Sally as she came over to join her. “I’m sure I don’t want to listen to you smacking squeeters on your ass all night!” laughed Sally. Ursyla slid in under the netting and tried not to crowd Sally, but the only way the netting would cover them both was for them to scoot close together, tucking it around their pillow and under Ursyla on the open side of the bunk. Their shoulders were pressed together and Sally knew that any tossing and turning would pull the netting open, so she turned on her side and suggested they spoon. Sally’s breasts were soon pressing into her companion’s back and the next problem was where to put her hands. It was soon solved when Ursyla took the hand that Sally rested on her arm and pulled it around her so Sally’s hand was held fast between Ursyla’s small, firm breasts. Sally hoped her new friend couldn’t feel how fast her heart was now racing, but in the quiet darkness they both succumbed to the day’s efforts and fell into sleep! Crack-Boom! They awoke with a start! It wasn’t morning yet, but there was light dancing around over their heads! They were both wide-awake after what sounded like a canon firing. Its echo was still bouncing around the nearby mountains, and they both leaped off the sleeping platform and started to smell smoke. The roof was on fire! Sally and Ursyla looked up and saw a gaping hole in the ceiling overhead, ringed by flames where a lightning bolt had just struck the roof only a few feet over their heads! They were still tingling and half-deaf from the thunderous report when they saw the flames quickly spreading across the roof! They ran outside with nothing on between them but Ursyla’s panties. Sally watched the blaze quickly spread across the top of the shelter and turned to retrieve their packs from the burning hut, but flaming pieces of the roof began falling through as the fire consumed it and Sally realized it was too late. Their back-packs, their sleeping bags, all their clothes and supplies were gone with one stroke of lightning. Then the rain came! Sally and Ursyla could barely see each other as the torrential downpour drenched their bare skin and finally doused the last flickerings of the fire, leaving them surrounded by darkness again. They joined hands and pulled each other into a hug, thankful to be alive as the rain soaked their hair and chilled their bare skin. They scampered around the clearing, blindly searching for the safest spot to shelter, but soon gave up and sat down huddled back-to-back on the wet ground.