Murder she wrote (10/31/2024)

The other day, my wife had a phone call from a good friend telling her that someone they knew was killed in a murder/suicide. No indication was given who did who, but it was a married couple and after the fact it came out that she frequently berated him. The guy brought calendars to her office and seemed to talk incessantly with the staff. You could not shut him up. I can just imagine that dynamic at home.

Regardless who might be the victim or the perpetrator, it brought some distant memories back to me. A little more than five years ago now, were we informed of a mass shooting in Virginia Beach. The killer turned out to be an old colleague of mine. We had somehow stayed in touch when we both left our employer in 2004. Moreover, during my stormwater training career, he attended my classes and so did the folks that he killed. At the time it affected me a lot.

The call to my wife and the awakened memories made me more contemplative for a while and I started wondering how many folks actually know a murderer or someone who was murdered. Now my wife and I both know such a person, or one (or more) of each. I absolutely do not live in a hole in the ground, and as I described here, I have had my run-in with death or killings before, but that was when we lived in Uganda more than 40 years ago. However, that does not make any killing or murder less bad; neither makes it me more callous.

In thinking about these things, I had an additional thought that disturbed me: how many white folks know a murderer or someone who was murdered vs. African American folks. I have not done any research on this subject; however, I want to bet that black folks probably on average have disproportionally more killers and deaths by murder in their lives. I am absolutely not saying that African Americans are inherently more violent. No! There are some very clear reasons for this. Let’s call it out the way it is.

Our society is a tale of two economies; it is still racist at its core and that shows up everywhere in society. Words like economic justice, environmental justice and even, and this is my word, educational justice or disparity, aptly describe some of the causes for what is going on here. African American folks get concentrated in certain areas, they have less job opportunities and if they get them, they are lower paying because of the sub-par education they have gotten. Areas with large concentration of African Americans have fewer trees, and research has shown that the average temperatures in these areas are a few degrees warmer, which causes more heat emergencies in summer. It also seems that heavy industry or polluting industry is located or is planned for areas with larger minority populations. I once read somewhere that it is much easier to commit some crime if your outlook for the future is dismal. What is there to hope or plan for? It seems that minorities are for more often put in situations with little hope. When on top of all that you stick a lot of people in one place, violence will increase as well.

I heard that a lot of black mothers worry about their kids when they go out. Whether it is gang related or the white police showing their lingering racial bias or manliness. Although this is somewhat changing with all the recent school shootings. This results in more homeschooling for white kids and that changes the makeup of the schools and the lowers the education level. A vicious circle.

So, what am I trying to say here is my short post? Killing, murder or even suicide is deplorable. This is regardless of race, mental conditions, income, you name it. Violence is still being encouraged in certain political circles, and so is racism. It is not surprising that these circles intersect or even that both exist in same circle, racism and the encouragement for violent acts. We saw that on January 6 almost 4 years ago, during demonstrations in Charlottesville, call to mobilize the Army to take care of the “enemy from within,” and I can go on. Folks, we need to do something about this. We need to vote, reject violence and foster racial equity.

On first look, this picture has nothing to do with this post; however, I am seeing at least 4 different tree species here, which are equally affected by the change of seasons.  This shows that nature treats all the same, unlike what we do as human beings. 

Nomads, the conclusion (10/8/2023)

We are home arriving a few days ago. On arrival we felt both happy and sad at the same time. Happy to be home, sad that it was over, thirty-four days of travel of which most of them on the road. Yes, we spent a week sleeping on a guest bed at our daughter's and four nights in a motel bed, but we did spend the majority of those days that we slept in a motel in the van.

Here is a summary of our itinerary, listing the places we spent the night: (Home –) Twin Knobs Campground, Cave Run Lake (near Morehead, KY) – Babler State Park (near St. Louis, MO) – Big Lake State Park (near St. Joseph, MO) – North Sioux City (SD) – Gettysburg (SD) – East Totten Trail Campground (near Coleharbor, ND) – Miles City (MT) – Lewistown (MT) – Great Falls (MT, two nights) – Dillon (MT) – Logan (UT) – Cedar City (UT) – Henderson (NV) – Long Beach (CA, a week) – Kingman (AZ) – Flagstaff (AZ) – Albuquerque (NM) – Alamosa (CO) – Dodge City (KS) – Lee’s Summit (MO) – Rend Lake (near Mt. Vernon, IL) – Ashland (KY) – Natural Tunnel State Park (VA, three nights) (– home)

 

We drove 4695 miles going and 3277 miles returning. This makes sense considering on the way there we ended up north in North Dakota. I don’t know the exact amount of fuel we bought, but at 18 miles per gallon I can estimate that we burned 440 gallons of gasoline. This could have been less if we did not have to idle the van to keep our doggies cool.

We visited or drove through: VA, KY, IN, IL, MO, NE, IO, SD, ND, MT, ID, UT, NV, CA, AZ, NM, CO, KS, MO, IL, IN KY, TN, VA, a total of 19 different states. Personally, I added North Dakota and Nevada to the list of the states I have set foot in. Before this trip I had been to all the other states on this list. How long did we spend in these states? In total we spent 8 nights in CA, MT 5 nights, MO 3 nights, VA 3 nights, SD 2 nights, UT 2 nights, KY 2 nights, AZ 2 nights. We did not sleep in IN, IO, ID and TN and in the others only one night. Does this reflect our love, enjoyment or dislike of a certain state? To some extent, we really liked Montana and Missouri; in addition, we drove from one side of the state to the other (east to west, and in Missouri again from west to east on our return trip). Both states are big, but yes, we enjoyed both and fell in love with Montana. Kansas was liked least <here>. While I loved the countryside in certain areas of Kansas, we were bothered by all the feedlots, the looks, the smell that they produce and as a result the huge number of flies we had at our camp site. It was almost too much and it made us wonder if vegetarianism was the answer. Getting the hell out of Dodge seemed appropriate.

What did I or we learn from this trip? This country is damn big! No wonder it took Lewis and Clark so long to get across <here>. I realized that I still miss the desert, or maybe being an arid-land ecologist, observing all the changes in the plant life. I am and will stay a biologist or ecologist at heart. You read that folks complain about the monotony of the Great Plains; however, to me this area is fascinating. This includes the land use, differences in vegetation and most likely soils, the prairie potholes, the limitless sky, you name it. Moreover, I realized during the trip that the desert still remains my second love (after my wife/family/dogs of course). I have often written about forest bathing and my love dor wandering in the wood; I even presented a sermon on the subject. Yes, we drove through forests in Montana, New Mexico, Colorado and even in Missouri, Kentucky and Virginia, and loved it. However, I wonder if traveling through and spending time in the prairie and desert gives you the same benefits as experiencing the forest.

What did we learn about camping? You run out of time! Our van is small, and with two dogs we tend to cover the bed, a place where they spend most of their time while driving. The cover is used to keep the allergens (read dog hair) off our pillows and bedding. It generally took us 30 to 45 minutes to set the van up for sleeping once we decided it was time. Getting ready to get on the road in the morning is a different story. We never got on the road before 9:30. Stowing everything and cleaning up takes a long time. Thank goodness we both have our tasks and overall, it went very smooth. Usually, Donna would walk the dogs while I got the van ready for sleeping and driving the next day. I would make coffee in the morning while the dogs got their walk and breakfast, and at night I would make our evening coffee while Donna did the dishes. But still, it is a process to arrive at a site and depart the next day.

A little about camp sites. We stayed at commercial RV sites, KOAs, US government and County sites, and a town park. While KOAs started out as the last resort, they are the most expensive, later in the trip they became a great fall-back option and actually a preferred option at times. We found that commercial sites packed as many campers or RVs into their places as humanly possible. The sites were on gravel, which is a pain for the dogs, and two of the sites were next to livestock holding areas, smelly and teaming with flies. With the possible exception of the camping in Lewistown, MT, we left none of the commercial sites with the thought that it was so nice that we should return soon. Commercial sites charge around $50 per night.

KOAs are generally cleaner, have larger plots per camper, often have trees, clean restrooms and shower facilities, recreation facilities, a store, and sometimes a restaurant of sorts attached to it. Now, if you are passing through this may not be important, but it is nice, albeit more expensive. The cost for a night is close to $80 or even higher in desirable locations.

We fell in love with the State and County parks in Missouri and Virginia. They are relatively inexpensive ($20 to $35) and as good or better than the KOAs in my opinion. They miss the miniature golf, camp store and swimming pools, but they are clean, have nicely spaced sites and are well managed. With the special government pass, the US government sites are $10 per night. We stayed at one in Kentucky and in North Dakota. They were the two favorite sites on our trip. Finally, the city park site in Gettysburg, SD <here>. It seems that some of the small towns in the mid-west have opened their city parks to camping. They even provide electricity, water, bathroom and shower facilities to the weary campers. This is all for free, but a donation is welcomed. Moreover, you are expected to spend some money in town. We had breakfast at a local coffee shop the next morning. We loved the place and will return.

Something we never realized is that the public camp sites, like those owned or operated by the federal, state, or county governments have camp hosts. We encountered a camp host for the first time during our camping outing in July <here>; I wrote about them thinking they were unique; however, I now realize how ubiquitous they are. Hosts are folks that are volunteers who stay in the campground for free and manage things. At the campground in Lee’s Summit, Missouri and Rend Lake, Illinois <here> they even handled the registration and money. Camp hosts will bring firewood and ice to your camping site, and they all seem to drive around in golf carts to check on you and occasionally to chat. Now the town park site in Gettysburg <here> had no host and we were all alone, but the sheriff lived across the street.

As I mentioned above, we stayed in motels four times during our trip. Three of them were weather forced, in North Sioux city we read 108 on the thermometer <here>. In Cedar City we were hit with thunderstorms, and just outside Las Vegas we hit the heat again <here>. We had agreed to meet up with our friends who were moving from Yorktown wherever our paths crossed and stay in a motel <here>. The dogs behaved in the motel rooms, so it was actually not bad. Motel rooms are more expensive than camp sites and therefore are something to avoid.

Concluding this long post, we had fun. Will we do something like this again? Yes, probably but we need to plan the season better to avoid extreme heat, cold or inclement weather. Thirty-four days? Who knows, but first some shorter trips exploring our immediate area and the East Coast.

Google gave me a location map for September, and this shows the route we took.

Our dog Jasper is happy to be home, not to wear a harness and cuddle with mommy.  

Nomads, days 27 and 28 (9/29/3023)

We are getting closer to home, although on the spur of the moment we decided to extend our trip by cone more day. However, that is not the subject of the day; you will have to wait for the next post for that update. In this report, we are now about to turn east and head for home.

Day 27: Alamosa (CO) – Walsenburg – La Junta (CO) – Dodge City (KS)

Day 28: Dodge City – Spearville – Newton – Kansas City – Lee’s Summit (MO)

Now I am wondering myself, why mention these towns or cities in between? The reason for one is, so you the reader can follow the route on a map or some mapping program. Secondly, the locations mentioned here are somewhat significant on our travels. La Junta and Newton were lunch spots. In La Junta we had our first Sonic on our trip (actually in our life), but since we are traveling with dogs, lunch is in the van with the AC on. Moreover, at Sonic you can park under a canopy, somewhat in the shade. Sonis was not what you call fine dining; but it was ok. In Newton we stopped at a BBQ chain. That one was OK and we were somewhat enchanted by that small town.

We got gas in Walsenburg. One of the (not so) secret goals of our trip is to find yarn stores and boy, it looks like there was one right across the gas station. To our mutual disappointment, Edla’s had shut down. From the looks of it, the shop might have been closed for the past 40 or so years.

Other reportables include the huge windmill array in Spearville, and on day 27 the wonderful descent from 7500 feet in Alamosa to the shortgrass prairie in eastern Colorado. We drove along the Santa Fe trail (another thing to follow one of these days, or maybe the Oregon trail, or even the Mormon trail).

Finally Dodge City! Folks who know me know that during my lunch hour I used to go for a walk whenever I was working at the office in Richmond. My excuse was always that I needed to “get the hell out of Dodge.” In other words, it was time for me to put action to my words and get the hell out of Dodge. However, to leave you first have to enter and I needed to visit the famous western town Dodge City. Naturally, we needed to stay at the Gunsmoke TV park and visit Boot Hill. The camping was overrun by flies, and fair. Truthfully, we had our share of flies during our trip, but being in feedlot country really contributed to the number of flies that pestered us (and Radar). Dodge City, been there bought the t-shirt (literally).

We fell in love with the camping location in Lee’s Summit. This was at a county park and simply delightful. It was clean, well maintained and cheap ($20 per night). County parks have not disappointed us, to date. On the way over, we hit another wool store that was closed.

The last item in today’s report was the weather. For a weather channel junkie, somewhat science guy, and a meteorologist as wife, it was fascinating to watch the “dry” line set up. This is an imaginary line in the sky where thunderstorms develop and move east. It is a line between the dry desert air and moist air coming from the Gulf of Mexico. It was beautiful and from just west of La Junta to Dodge City we watched them develop. Based on the radar on our phone, one particularly large one seems to develop near Tucumcari, NM. It was beautiful to watch it grow to an amazing huge storm of an hour or so. In Garden City, just before Dodge City there were another few that were developing. Unlike what we have in Virginia, where thanks to the trees, we were treated to a visual spectacle watching storms develop. It was so nice to see the horizon.

The descent from Alamosa showed scares from a burn that must have occurred a year or so ago.  Root sprouters like aspen seemed to have survived the fire 

Developing thunderstorms on the "dry line"

Garden City thunderstorm

I shot the sheriff

Nomads, days 23 and 24 (9/25/2023)

On the road again. We left Long Beach. Here what we did the first two days on our return trip:

Day 23: Long Beach – Barstow – Kingman (AZ)

Day 24: Kingman – Grand Canyon – Flagstaff

Leaving the LA area made us realize that we had spent a week in polluted air. Driving the freeway out of the basin you could see the haze and we clearly broke out of it when we popped into the surrounding hills. According to the air quality apps the air was relatively clean; however, two days after we left our daughter texted us the latest updates and the air quality had deteriorated substantially. We had been in luck, folks told us, no Santa Anita winds and reasonably clean air. It had been relatively cool (low 70s) in what we had been told, the hottest period of the year.

When we left Long Beach for Kingman I had set the gps on my phone to drive via Palm Springs and Johsua Tree National Park. Unbeknownst to us our GPS reset itself to take the shortest route via Barstow (leave it to Google). This was somewhat upsetting to us since we drove down this way and we both hate to backtrack. However, it is the shortest way and we got to enjoy Interstate 40 (I-40) in its whole glory. Boy, what a terrible road that is! However, some 20 miles outside Barstow, we got to enjoy the Mohave desert in its full glory: hot, and sandy, with a lave field interspersed. Eventually the ocotillo cacti started coming in, indicating that we were entering or maybe approaching the Sonoran or sometimes called the Colorado desert. I had a ball, since I was trained as an arid land (desert) ecologist.

The highway follows the original Route 66 (yes, from the song), and this was fun as well, since we lived along it in Gallup, New Mexico, some 30 years ago. We were reminded of Route 66 all over Kingman.

That night it drizzled for a large part of the evening, and somewhat to my surprise the world still felt dry. You could hardly see the impact of the drizzle on the ground. “I am really back in the desert,” was my first reaction. On our way to the Grand Canyon the weather got increasingly worse, which somewhat in hindsight could be contributed to orographic lift, at least the wind direction was correct to attribute it to this phenomenon. It was off-and-on pouring in the National Park and the canyon was filled with aa dense fog. You could not see the other side, nor the bottom. Still, it was nice to see and be there.

Getting away from the canyon, the weather became remarkably better and once arrived in Flagstaff the sun was out. We tried to make a campfire, failed miserably but went to bed well satisfied. It was nice to be back on the road again, but this time it was in the direction home.

In Kingman, AZ

The Mohave desert in its full glory

Grand Canyon in the fog (the next three picture).  The first one could easily be a bonsai.

Nomadic life will continue (8/21/2023)

It has been a few weeks since I checked in here on my blog, but so be it. I can notice that my readership has declined somewhat during these past two months, but maybe I can atribute that to the vacation that many are having, my retirement, and all the things going on in my life. For one we had some major structural work done in our home. This cost gobs of money, but we justified it by the fact that we are healthy, plan to live here for at least another 10 to 15 years, and it would increase the value of our home. It may in the long run even save us money.

But this is not what I want to write about. I am writing to forewarn you, my dear readers, that the nomad will be resuming his nomadic lifestyle during the month of September. We are planning a trip across the country to attend to family festivities in California. Yes, we will be doing this with our camper van, the Ford Transit, that we recently purchased from friends. I already wrote about some dress rehearsal camping trips here and here.

The trip is estimated to take two weeks to travel from the east to the west coast. After the festivities we will need to return home and we have no idea yet how long we will be taking to accomplish that or the route. Naturally, I will try to write about our trip (both going and returning); maybe not a daily report, but I hope to write a regular dispatch from the road. I really hope to give you all an idea of what we are experiencing and how I am feeling. It will include reviews of the places (camping areas) we stay; places we visit; walks and hikes we do; restaurants we eat at; maybe some microbreweries or wineries; or even some knitting shops.

Are we preparing? Yes, we are! On our way out west we are planning to roughly follow the Lewis and Clark trail, at least to the Montana-Idaho border, or the source of the Missouri river before turning south towards the Los Angeles area. I have been reading various books including the book by Stephen E. Ambrose entitled “Undaunted Courage, Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West,” Julie Fanselow’s “Traveling the Lewis and Clark Trail,” and Alain de Botton’s “The Art of Travel.” As you can see, I always have a number of books open, but that’s me. I have been booking camp sites and figuring out the best routes to drive. We’ll try to stay away from the interstate highways once we reach St. Louis, the “official” start of the trail.

We have given ourselves 14 days to get across; however, there are a lot of unknowns. Of course there is hurricane season. We really wondered why the festivities were planned at the height of this time of year. Twenty years ago, our area was hit by hurricane Isabel on September 18, and our party is on September 16 in LA. Our area sustained major damage as a result of Isabel’s passing; we lost electricity for 13 days. Hurricanes have been in the back of our mind ever since during the month of September and leaving home that month is somewhat scary. In addition, leaving my bonsai trees for more than a few days worries me somewhat, although I have an automated watering system and my neighbor Bob promised he would keep an eye on them.

A final item is of course not knowing what to expect in the northern states. This includes the weather and animals like bears. Will it be cold in Montana, will we be bugged by grizzlies? Yes, I already loaded a space heater, which will only work when we have shore power, and I bought bear spray. Reading accounts about van-life in Reddit, I learn that van floors are notoriously cold and poor Radar (our dog) who sleeps on the floor was already shivering when the outside temperatures dipped below 60 degrees Fahrenheit. But then today it is 102 degrees in North and South Dakota.

All this thinking and anticipation reminds me a little of what I read in The Art of Travel about that subject. Botton writes about de Esseintes, a character in J.K. Huysman’s 1884 novel A Rebours who was a great armchair traveler full of anticipation but was bitterly disappointed when reaching his destination and almost immediately returned home without completing his planned visits. In other words, we will see how this will all pan out. I am sure that there will be days when we will be disappointed, and days when we will be ecstatic; tired days and days that we want to keep going. After our 6 days of camping in July we felt great and were ready for more. So hopefully this will be fine too. Stay tuned.

The rear of the van has been decorated.  If you are a reader on the trail we are following and you see these decals, come and say hello.

The AMOC is going amok (8/10/2021)

This week we learn that global warming may have some real strange bedfellows. Ice age anyone? Unbelievable, now I have to concede to some of the conservative pundits who were telling us that the climate is all cyclical, and we were due for an ice age and not for warming out of control. Where did I or all these doomsday prognosticators go wrong? Here I wrote a whole post on how things were not cyclical, but we were trapped in a death spiral. No, now we are learning that the movie “The day after tomorrow” may actually be spot on.

This was a scene from this past winter, but can you just imagine walking in the woods on August 10, in coastal Virginia and experiencing this.  Yes, I have been in a snowstorm in Wyoming on July 3rd, but that was at high elevation.

What changed? Well, it is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) that seems to be getting screwed up. Now what the hell is he talking about? The AMOC going amok?

Very simply put the gulf stream is part of AMOC, a circulation of ocean currents that brings warmer waters to the northern hemisphere and the temperate climate to western Europe.  Part of the AMOC is a colder flow back over the ocean floor. Cold water is heavier and where the warm and the cold meet (for instance the Labrador Straights) it provides great fish habitat.

This past week two papers were published, one by a climate scientist (Niklas Boers) and one by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research who both claim that the circulation is weakening, slowing down or may actually stopping. This may actually happen abruptly, or more likely by the end of this century (no one is sure yet). The result should be the end of warm temperate weather in Europe and North America. North America and Europe will likely experience an ice age like in the movie; maybe not overnight but fairly rapidly. In addition, there will be droughts in these areas and in west Africa and because the current actually pulls water away from the east coast of the U.S. there will be extra sea level rise. Exciting isn’t it!

But why is this happening?

Therein lies the 10-million-dollar question isn’t it. The cause is global warming. While that may seem crazy, but all that ice and melting (cold) freshwater runoff (read too much runoff and caused by global warming) from the melting Greenland glaciers that enters the ocean is essentially interrupting, weakening, blocking the AMOC. Somewhat like a feedback loop, it may actually usher in a new ice age. While the other ice ages may have been caused by the earth’s shift on its axis, this may be caused indirectly by humankind.

It would sure be an interesting scenario to think about, I am not sure if scientists really know if this will really happen and if so, how severe it would be. It is just fascinating and scarry at the same time to see and think about what is happening now that we humans are influencing the natural world as opposed of being part of the natural world. There are so many things happening around us presently that never happened before, at least not at such a large scale like the floods, hurricanes and wildfires.

The spiral vs. the cycle (6/29/2021)

 I recently had an encounter with one of my neighbors.  This gentleman is a fanatic conservative, and whenever you have a friendly talk with him he will find a way of steering the conversation into politics in one way or another.  He knows that I am a fervent liberal, and that makes me one of his favorite targets.  Surprisingly, we still get along, and at times I like needling him.  We even used to be drinking buddies; although, my wife and I have been avoiding this couple in the past few years exactly for the reason detailed above, actually ever since the election of tRump.

During our recent encounter, my friend tried to convince me that whatever we are currently experiencing in our climate is cyclical.  He was obviously not referring to what they are experiencing in the northwest.  I have a feeling if I let him loose there and he would tell that to folks over there, he might get beaten up.  No, my friend (who shall remain nameless) was telling me that when he moved into our neck-of-the-woods years ago, springs were cold and unpredictable and then all the sudden they turned warm and predictable.  Now according to him, the weather again turned cold and unpredictable in spring these past two years; and his conclusion to me was: “see, it is cyclical.”    

I can be somewhat quick witted at times, but this time he caught me off guard.  I kinda smiled and tried to walk on.  My friend reminded me that we used to do a lot of debating and drinking together and that we desperately needed to repeat this.  I just shouted at him from a distance to have our brides make the arrangements.  

A little further during my walk, I all the sudden figured out what my answer should have been to this old friend about the cyclicality of the weather.  Yes, I could have told him that climate and weather are two completely different things.  Weather is what we are currently experiencing (yesterday and maybe tomorrow).  Climate is defined as the long-term average weather.  So yes, the weather is cyclical, just as every day is cyclical, it gets light every morning and dark every evening.  

However, in my eyes if there is a cyclical pattern in our climate it is a spiral and the climate is spiraling out of control.  Spirals go round and round as well, they can get tighter or wider.  Spirals get back to a similar pattern as well, but usually more exaggerated.  That is what we are seeing thanks to global warming or climate change.  I am sure that the Pacific Northwest has had heat waves before.  But never like this.  

I really think that this should have been my answer to my friend.  Honestly, he is one of the most intelligent persons I know (and that for a Republican) and I bet he would understand the spiral.  Although I think an interesting discussion would have followed.  Yes, the same conditions will repeat maybe for shorter periods, or more exaggerated, but they will eventually spiral out of control.  An interesting, but disturbing concept to consider.  But one thing is certain, climate change is real and we are stuck in a spiral.

I chose this picture today as a representation of the ultimate spiral.  Hurricanes are expected to increase in numbers and intensity with global warming. 

The Weather Gods are angry (8/21/2018)

At one point in my my life I must have angered the weather Gods. I am not sure when I did this, but from what it looks like, it must have been some time ago. They have been on my case for some time!  Of late, the weather Gods seems to try to sabotage whatever (family) plans I (or we) have. Take for instance this past weekend.

Our daughter is in town and so were friends. What better opportunity to go for a bike ride on the Capital Trail in Jamestown and end this at the Billsburg Microbrewery, followed by a dinner. Oh well, ominous clouds gathered and halfway driving to the starting point of our bike ride we were surprised by a downpour. When we arrived at the designated starting spot to meet our friends Val and Dave, thunder was cracking and rain was starting again. We decided to go to the microbrewery instead and wait out the rain. We got a little wet running in from the parking lot to the taproom, but so be it. In the microbrewery we sampled some delicious beers, experienced some great company, watched a magnificent lightning show, and a tropical downpour. From the looks on the radar, it was not going to stop so eventually we decided to go out to dinner. Suffice it to say, the weather Gods prevented us from exercise and our biking a thing we usually enjoy very much. Although we did try to make the best of it. But then, we beat the crowd to the restaurant; maybe the weather gods were actually looking out for us.

It always seems to go like this though. This summer, it seems to have rain on the weekends and and it is nice during the week. I have not been out sailing yet this year! I can blame the weather Gods for that, or maybe the (hurt) knee Gods, the college graduation Gods and all kinds of other scapegoat Gods. 

Take for instance the other evening, I was peacefully waking the dog (we do that every evening) and the clouds break open literally when we reach the furthest point removed from our home. I did not carry an umbrella or raincoat and the only thing I could do was walk home through what felt like a tropical downpour. The only thing missing was a good electrical storm; I guess I have not yet angered the Gods that much. By the time Jake the dog and I arrive home, 10 minutes later, nothing on my body was dry. We usually dry the dogs off before we let them in the house; this time I was also handed a towel to dry myself off outside, so I would not get the inside of our home wet. My wife took a rain check that evening and let me go walk alone. Her knee hurt she said. Funny how people’s joints can predict the weather. I now know what it means when people take rain checks. 

Earlier this week, I took a day off to enjoy some time with the family. Maybe some outing, beach time? Well, by two o’clock that afternoon we almost had 3 inches (7.5 cm) of rain that fell in about two to three hours time. On top of that we lost electricity. But it was a nice family bonding experience sitting in our gazebo watching the yard getting flooded.

This photo was taken during the height of the storm this past Monday.  The path in our back yard that leads to the woods behind our home was literally a flowing creek.

At points that day the water in our yard was ankle deep.  I was really wondering when the snakes were going to float by.

Weather has always played a large part in our lives. Two of my posts deal with some of the weather we experienced while living in Nepal. We went through one monsoon season and it was so bad, the one night we got almost swept away by floods. Two days later, we were crossing a stream and the wife of the same friends lost her footing and was swept away by a raging stream towards an even larger raging stream. If she would have entered that one it would have been the end of her. Somehow I was able to run after her and put my walking stick out which she was able to grab a hold of and I was able to pull her out of the stream. I really hate to think what would have happened if I (or she) would not have been able to do that. We crossed that stream all the time, it was less than 3 feet wide with stepping stones, but during the monsoon it had turned into this wild torrent of at least 30 feet wide and more than knee deep. It swept her off her feet. During that same monsoon we witnessed whole mountain sides collapsing around us and landslides everywhere. So we decided that the next monsoon we were going on vacation. But then I also wrote about getting dehydrated in a snowstorm in the mountains of Nepal. Those weather Gods are amazing!

Living in coastal Virginia for the past 18 years I have seen my share of tropical storms and other weather phenomena. I am just so concerned that with global warming or what some euphemistically call "climate change," things will get even more extreme. I think we are seeing that already; many old timers in my classes mention this, but as soon as I mention those words “Global warming”, they try to take it back and “oh no, the storms are really not getting more severe, they are just outliers.” The weather Gods are not getting angrier in their eyes; while we all know that they actually are, and that it is the result of all the stuff we do, the stuff we emit but try to deny and ignore!