It was a close call this afternoon, but we made it home dry. It was questionable if we would. The sky would very questionable. So much so that it took a phone call home to see just how bad it was at home, just a mere two miles away. It really is amazing what an hour can do to the weather.
Let’s recap…
This is what the sky looked like out the back window before I left to make the 2 mile ride to the school. Remember that this is a shot out tinted windows and you are catching the glare of the full sun coming through the window and the reflection of the blinds off the window. That’s the top of the trees and it really was a beautiful, crisp blue sky with sparse, fluffy white clouds.
At just less than an hour later, I was talking to the first crossing guard, Wanda, about her doctors’ appointments yesterday. She is a multiple-time cancer survivor and she had a check up down at MD Anderson. We happened to turn and got a good look at the sky back toward where the house is and it was beginning to look a little iffy. That lead to a nice discussion about the previous day’s experience. She did not have a great experience with some of the drivers either. Evidently, she feels the same way I do about drivers and their sudden increase in stupidity when the rain starts to fall. She agreed that they got stupider as the rain fell heavier. At least I am not alone in my observations. I quickly bid farewell and finished the trek to the usual waiting point closer to the elementary school.
The skies do not look too bad, but a few minutes can make a big difference when the storms start brewing. Or as Wanda, the crossing guard, described the clouds from yesterday – boiling.
The shots are a little hazy and blurry because I had my phone inside a ziploc bag. These two pictures were taking just a couple of minutes apart, however. The skies were progressively darker and the clouds were getting closer to us.
I was at this point reserving the right to change my opinion on whether or not a 30% chance of rain was good odds or not. It was not looking very good. School had not been released yet and it was questionable that it would hold off until school let out before the rain started as fast as it was rolling in.
This a quarter mile into the return trip. This is the walk down the sidewalk from the school back to the neighborhood entrance. We stepped off the sidewalk so that I could call home to find out how bad it was as looking back to the left is where we were heading, approximately two miles. We were going straight ahead for a while and then working left, however. Either way you look at it from our perspective right there, it was not looking very good. It was looking an awful lot like what we were seeing yesterday and it was pretty treacherous yesterday. I wanted to know just how bad it was at home already. We had blue sky still behind us.
This is what it looked like pulling into the driveway. That’s the top of the house. Wicked dark clouds on the left. Clear blue skies again on the left. Andrew told me they had clear blue skies at home when I called home. Yes, two miles away and there was a patch of blue skies in all that dark clouds we were seeing. This is roughly an hour and an half after the original picture was taken.
We made it home fast! I have not see Lance pedal as fast as he pedaled today in a very long time. Let me just say that it has been since the first week of school when we rode on Lacey Road to bypass the sidewalk the one day we were able to get out before all the cars were released from the school parking lot. He was clipping at a very consistent 15-16 MPH rate today. I told him that he was proud of him today and that he was going very fast. His response? “I did not want to ride in those rains again.” I have to admit I do not blame him.
I just have to say that that patch of blue sky did not last long. We were home maybe twenty minutes before the rain started. At least we made it inside and completely dry this time. Well, that is of course, if you can call sweat drenched clothes completely dry. At least I did not have to deal with soaking wet tennis shoes again…
Be the first to comment