Surprise Storm

I would tell you where we went today but I do not know the name of the place.

Just as we were about to drop one hundred and twenty plus dollars on a tram ride up a mountain to an amusement park and cave system, lightning crashed and the workers shut down the system. So we spent an hour watching hurricane force wind and rain from the car for free. The drive back was wet and keeping up with Stephen meant speeding along the curves of the upper Colorado River. Rafters were pulled up to shore and the people took shelter under heavy evergreen trees, under rock ledges and in shallow caves. We saw an entire family sitting side by side in a cave waiting out the severe thunderstorm. I thought about pioneers braving their way across the country, taking shelter from the storm, only they did not have to worry about being captured, tortured and killed by locals as they passed thru. I never understood it. It is such an enormous land with plenty of space (still) yet that violent territorialism existed. I used to see it in a microcosm in the surf line ups on both coasts... but nobody was ever killed.

Stephen and I just fell into a conversation about the good old days growing up in Madison and how the bullies (our older friends) ruled the neighborhood. So many funny and some brutal stories I will not relate here.

Hours later after local pizza and taking the kids to a movie... the rain made it up the river and canyons of Interstate 70 and watered down the landscape during the movie. The temperature before dark is in the fifties. It will be in the forties overnight. I wore a longsleeve t shirt all day today... and shorts.