Our Monsoon season is coming to an end and, as with many other places, it has been pretty disappointing.
The sky goes black to the east of us, or in the mountains to the north of us, there is some flashing of lightning in the distance getting our hopes up, and then everything fizzles out with at most a few drops. Next morning we meet our friends at Agua Caliente and the conversation is "How much did you get?" "Well, .006." "That's what we got too."
The other day it started in the usual way. Cheryl with her excellent hearing said (from inside the house) "it sounds like it's raining." I, with my lousy hearing, said "I don't hear it." But when I took the garbage out a moment later I could see big splots of rain spreading on the ground, and a splitting sound of thunder hit so close I rushed back in the house for shelter. A sudden wind came up, and instantly it was raining so hard we couldn't see across the back yard. Cheryl said "I'm going out to enjoy it."
Our porch along the back of the house is open on the outside, but has a roof, so we could sit out on it and keep relatively dry except when the wind struck us with a gust of rain. Every few seconds there would be a flash then thunder sounding like it was directly overhead, and I actually saw a bolt of lightning go into the ground across from us. It was all so intense, and we were enjoying it so much, we were afraid any minute it would turn off like a spigot, but it kept going at full power, and it was wonderful, the first real storm we had experienced this year.
Well, it did stop, and the air cleared. But that wasn't the end. We looked off in the distance, and saw a plume of brown smoke rising. Lightning had started a fire somewhere. We didn't know where it might be, but our daughter-in-law sent us the news that night that it was Agua Caliente, the lightning had struck some of the 50-year-old palm trees and started a blaze in the dry leathery
leaves. They had put out the fire quickly but damage had been done. That was bad enough, but there was even worse information: The park would be closed for a month while they cleaned it up.
What would we all do?
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