Thursday, 28 July 2011

A thing I have missed...

I grew up in the Midwest, Minnesota to be specific. We are, in fact, visiting there at the present and ran into something that I didn't realize I had missed until...

We arrived on Wednesday the 20th of July to very hot and muggy weather.  We must have brought the "summer that wasn't" with us from Seattle because the next day the weather broke and it was pleasant and less muggy.  On Friday we rented a car and headed "up nort" for the Crosslake area where my parents have been spending the summer in a cabin they have rented on Whitefish Lake. 

That night, it happened.  The thing I have missed but didn't know it.  A Thunderstorm.  Nothing severe, no tornado or straight line winds, just lightning and thunder and heavy rain.  My reaction was not annoyance or frustration that sleep was now less likely, no, it was pleasure!  I had missed that crack of light that displays everything in a macabre fashion for just an instant.  That BOOM of thunder, especially the close ones.  Then the rain pounding down.

A few days later we headed out to visit our daughter and son-in-law and our grandsons in Western Minnesota.  Farm counrty.  Fields of corn. Fields of soybeans and vice-versa.  While en-route we encountered yet another thunderstorm dumping huge, fat drops of rain with an occasional THUNK! of 1/4 inch hail!  The car was washed clean!  The temperature was returned to reasonable. AHHHH!

The next night there was the light show of lightning and thunder from around 11 p.m. to at least 3 a.m.  I slept fitfully but not in a bad way.  There were mostly distant flashes and low rumblings, but once in a while a brilliant flash and fantastic BOOM...

Did I mention that I have enjoyed visiting my family?

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