For nearly three straight weeks it’s been over a hundred degrees every day. Last week I joined the library, ordered inter-library loan books, and today I had to go fetch. The weather forecast had muttered something about it getting above 113F (44C) later, with maybe a token thunderstorm, so I hedged and went in.

It was 99F when I left and it took me a good two hours to recover, rehydrate and feel like doing anything other than flopping around going “ugh” when I returned. But at least I got my library book.

Mostly, if we go anywhere, we leave after dark.My pasty white legs have seen the light of day for the first time in years as I wear a succession of shorts and cut-offs. I don’t dare buy meat or milk at the moment as I don’t think it would survive the trip. We don’t like running the air conditioner, but we really have to, and thus it’s been a case of batten down the hatches and stay indoors. Some travelers we are. ;)

Evaporative cooling helps. Every so often we go out and douse the RV in water. It’s sort of fun to spray the hose directly up and catch a miniature rain shower. Don went out earlier today and started hosing down the RV. I didn’t think anything of it until I suddenly realized that the sound of water on the roof was rhythmic, and strangely like rain. After a moment it dawned on me that the sky was actually dark, and then it growled.

I ran outside to help cover the bikes and then enjoyed the brief rain shower by prancing around in it like a kid. Maybe half an hour of cooling rain with a storm growling one valley over took twenty degrees out of the air. There was no lightning, the storm was quite far away, but the rain was just the most blissful thing I’ve felt in the last month.

The forecast for tomorrow is the same: “Slight chance of thunderstorms.” We’ll see if that translates into “marvelous relief from excessive and unusual heat.” I hope we can manage it without further lightning strikes, but I’d be quite happy to see another little cloudburst. Water falling from the sky is a miracle, and today I got to dance in some.

Tags: heat, rain, the-pad, thunder, thunderstorms, weather

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