.I suppose it's my own fault really. I was the one who jinxed it. I was the one who, earlier in the day, yesterday, said, "The weather guys are never right. They have been predicting rain every single evening all week and every single evening it does not rain." See? I poked the bear. And then I sealed our fate when I followed that with, "I guess I will have to break down and water the yard." I angered the weather gods. But I wasn't lying. Everything I said was true. After weeks of daily rain, suddenly we hit the doldrums. It rained everywhere around us. There were flood warnings amighty for miles and miles around us. But here the sun shone brightly every day. Which is, of course, lovely, but the greenery requires water. Usually this time of year, at some point nearly every day there is about 15 minutes of downpour. Just enough to keep the green, green. So when that water ration is abruptly taken away for a period of time, everything starts to wilt a bit, brown a little around the edges, stop blooming. It's very sad. I was merely reporting fact. The previous night, that would be July 3rd, according to all weather reports there would be sluices of rain pouring down, as they had reported each day. Instead we walked to the beach after dinner, as we do most nights. It was gorgeous. People were playing volleyball by the last orange glow of the sunset, still laughing and nibbling at remnants of their picnic dinners which by then were surely crunchy with sand, and children were still calling, "Hey mom, dad, look!" from the water where they played. Tim and I walked calf deep in the bath warm water and took photos of the sunset. In short, we had no reason to believe that the evening of July 4th would be any different. So we ate our Independence Day traditional dinner of grilled hotdogs, macdaddy salad, various olives and pickles and deviled eggs. At about 7:30, we began gathering the things we felt necessary to watch and enjoy the fireworks. And it was while we were organizing our excursion that the sky opened up and the rain came down. In surprise, we watched and listened to the drumming on the roof for a full half hour. "Making up for lost time" was our thought. And then shortly after 8pm it stopped. Nice! Perfect even, the air was cooled a bit from the hot day for the schlep to the shore. We loaded up carrying chairs in bags (one of my favourite inventions of late), bottles of water, my camera and, at the last moment, my big red umbrella. Off we went walking around puddles as we trekked. It's only a 12 minute walk. We enjoyed other people's home firework displays on the way over and watched the clouds before us lighten up. As we got closer to the water, joined by others on foot and on bicycle, we saw the sun nearing the horizon and beach filled with spectators eager for the show. We could see boats lined up in the water ready for their primo views. We carefully selected our spot and began to set up camp. No sooner had we settled into our chairs when the thunder began rumbling from behind us. People got out of the water. The wind picked up. Children were wrapped in beach towels. The rain began gently pitpatting. We put up our umbrella, others on the beach gathered under their large beach umbrellas. The rain came down harder. Thunder began hitting really deep bass notes and holding them. And then the lightening started. That's the cue to leave. And leave they did. People began running for their cars and their condos and hotel rooms. The beach umbrellas served as rain umbrellas as families ran stumbling across the sand, children crying and dad's carrying coolers. People who had set up little tents struggled to take them down as the wind picked up. We sat and watched it all. Surely the rain will be over soon. We huddled close together under our umbrella growing increasingly wetter all the while enjoying Mother Nature's fireworks show. Just shy of 9 o'clock, when the fireworks were a bout to begin we gave in. I huddled shivering under the umbrella while Tim folded the chairs back up and forced them into their wet bags and we slogged home fighting the wind, the rain and our wet clothes. As we walked through our door, the rain suddenly, completely, entirely stopped and we could hear the booms of fireworks instead of the booms of thunder. We no longer cared. Hot showers were the only thing we could think about at that point. though we were still laughing about it all the whole time. So in short we fully expected this: And instead we got this: Life is an adventure. We've seen fireworks before. We have enjoyed fireworks on the beach before. But this is the first time we've been rained out of a fireworks show. The other fireworks displays, while awesome, kind of blend together. I bet we remember this one.
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AuthorYup, this is me. Some people said, "Sam, you should write a Blog". "Well, there's a thought", I thought to myself. And so here it is. Archives
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