Swollen Tohickon Creek – Photo: L. Weikel

Oof!

I got cocky today.

As you know if you read last night’s blog, I’ve been yearning to get back on the beaten path, having missed two full days of walking any distance.

I was keeping an eye on the weather this morning, and I saw that we were under yet another Flash Flood Warning for most of the day today. This was on top of the fact that the National Weather Service reported that our area received – in just three hours early this morning – more rain than usually falls in the entire month of June. And they were calling for another possible 3” this afternoon.

So this afternoon, just after finishing a follow-up email for a client, I decided to run out to the store. The sky looked ominous, and I wasn’t going to risk walking. Not with the thunder I heard rumbling in the distance.

Well, that was a good decision. The not walking, I mean. Turned out I didn’t even make it to the car. All of a sudden, just as I was gathering my keys and journal (I never go anywhere without it), the entire house got dark. Not in the sense of losing electricity; rather, the clouds I’d only glimpsed (and heard approaching) on the horizon were suddenly on top of our house. And they were so thick and so oppressive, the natural light of day became so obscured that it looked and felt like well past sunset.

And then the heavens opened. We experienced a deluge.

Hard to tell from the photo above, but the rain was streaming from the sky. The small creek across the road overflowed its banks and coursed down the center of our road. Our entire back yard became a series of small ponds.

Cut to 45 minutes later. The azure sky is crystal clear, sunshine is sparkling off the millions of raindrops puddled on or clinging to the leaves of all the trees surrounding us.

OK, I think to myself. I’m bagging the store run. This is my chance to get a walk in!

I call Spartacus and he is, of course, game. I strap him up in his harness and away we go.

Even the tiniest and most obscure natural drainage areas – most of which I’ve hardly ever seen any sign of water in at all – are coursing with vigor and have discovered their voice. (I wish you could touch your screen and experience the ‘live’ version of the photo below, because you can hear the water’s deep throated celebration of its power.)  (And don’t even get me started on how bizarre those ‘live’ photos on iPhones are. They’re just like Harry Potter!)

As I walk, I’m actually ‘hearing’ the rushing sound of water in areas alongside the road that are obscured by nearly-blooming day lilies and an assortment of other tall, grassy greens. If I could not hear that literal roaring sound, I wouldn’t even be aware that there was a creek flowing along that part of the road. Amazing.

Alas…

Spartacus and I made it about 2.5 miles when we met up with Karl and Sheila, who had walked toward us from the other direction. Not a minute passed following our reunion when I suddenly realized clouds were approaching from the west again. Rapidly. We quickened our pace, but the attempt was futile.

It was as if we were in the midst of one of those ‘microbursts.’ (And I suppose we may have been; I can’t say for sure.) Tthe reality is: we got drenched. Soaked.

Civic Duty Pays Dividends!

But you know what was really cool? A young woman, who might actually be part angel, pulled up alongside of us in her white vehicle just as the rain started coming down in sheets. She looked familiar, but I didn’t know her name. She asked if we wanted a ride.

Our neighbor (not immediate – she lives about a mile away from us) actually invited us and our drowned-rat pups into her car and gave us a lift home. Of course, the storm had passed and the sun was out again in the short time it took for us to get back to our house. But we would have been even more soaked and bedraggled if the wonderful Amanda hadn’t saved our bacon.

It turned out she recognized me from when I’d worked as an election official in May. See? Civic duty pays dividends in the most unexpected ways!

(T-890)