RAINDROPS KEEP FALLIN' ON MY HEAD

Last night was warm enough to leave a few windows open.  Which was fine until the robins woke up well before the sun and started screaming “Get Up! Get Up!” to the whole neighborhood.

FINE! I was awake.  With one eye I looked at my Yahoo Weather app.  Temp in the fifties, wind, three mph.  Maybe I could get in a bike ride before the day hit the fan. 

I was dressed and carrying my bicycle out the door before I realized the student on the University Public Radio Station I was listening to had probably phoned in the current weather conditions and most certainly had NOT looked out the window.

Big purple clouds were rolling in from the west dragging a curtain of rain.  I told myself the storm was far away and that I’d almost certainly make it back before the black weather arrived.

I almost did.  I was on the hill above town when the clouds rolled into the valley.  The first big blops of rain began to leave spots on the pavement around me and I could hear distant thunder.  Then lightning started shooting out of the sky and I realized I was alone on a high place with a metal bicycle.  It was all downhill from there.  Funny how fear can remove fatigue.

Fortunately the worst part of the weather went north and I made it to our driveway just ahead of the downpour.

The approaching cloudburst looked a lot like this. I didn’t stop for photos. I lifted this picture from http://stormchase.net/ which has photograph after photograph of amazing weather taken by Roger and Caryn Hill.