Into the Storm
Our annual family vacation started with a hot summer morning. And became an insane summer storm!
We crested the pass into the Carson Valley to see these clouds massive over the sky. I must say that I have not seen green skies before. And these were really green. We pulled over on a lookout spot to watch lightning fork and flash across the sky. We tried catching a lightning strike on camera. They are shy, quick, and always out of the frame :)
We drove down the hill. The storm arrived in the last stretch of highway. Big plops of rain that drenched the windshield. Then hard cracks on the roof and windshield as hail joined the rain. And lightning speared with crashes of thunder. In the back seat, Ian quickly moved from wonderment to apprehension. We calculated the time to the store (one block) as an alert blared from our radio.
BLEEEEP BLEEEEP Emergency flash flood warnings...
We drove at a crawl to the store as water sloshed over the road. How well did we know this area? Could the whole road wash away? We were below the pass and the mountain range.
We made it to the parking lot and the rain and hail managed to intensify, becoming a crashing pummeling thunder on the car roof. Ian became increasingly upset. I glimpsed muddy water washing into the parking lot. I reassured Ian and myself as we stayed in the car to ride out the storm.
Want to feel small? Want to feel how mighty the sky can be? Sit in a Prius as a red-cell storm (on the radar) passes directly overhead. Whew!
So we waited it out and drove past washouts and rock slides to our hotel. Where the power had gone out! No power meant no keys. And no elevators. So we had to wait for security to let people into rooms one by one. Rain kept falling as clouds broke into peeks of clear skies.
Security walked us up seven flights of stairs to our room. Where dark gathered. And, yes, it wasn't the vacation that we had planned, but there was magic in the quiet. The kids played ipad games sparingly (didn't want to waste the battery).
Around 8pm, the power returned! Yay! We appreciate all of the little things again. Like charge cables and elevators. I felt like Rapunzel for awhile stranded in my tower.
But morning arrived with power and (almost clear) skies. Vacation is on!
Time to go play :)
