Rain, Rain, Rain

They have been forecasting a cold front to move through the Charlotte, NC area and it arrived today.  We went over to Larry & Jane's house to spend some time with Grant and soon after we got there the thunder started.  Grant had the foresight to come in and keep away from the lightening that lit up the sky a few minutes later.  

It came down in buckets and the back yard quickly filled up with water.  They have a small drainage ditch at their property line and it was about 3ft deep and then it spread into the yard. 

 It started to hail and the wind picked up and brought down some trees and branches in the neighborhood, but no damage to our immediate area.  Finally, the power went off and the lightening storm continued.  Now that is what I would call a monsoon type rain.

Not to belittle the display of nature, but we had rain like the above just about every day in the rainy season when we lived in Costa Rica.  Our gutters were about 10 inches wide and 12 inches deep and they couldn't handle the water coming off the roof.  This started around May and lasted through October.  All your outdoor activities had to be planned for the morning since the afternoons were extremely wet.

Recently, the house cat Sherman disappeared and never returned.  He was 13 years old so it is a mystery what happened to him.  Now they have a new kitten in the house and it is full of vim and vigor.  He has two speeds, uncontrolled and sleeping.  We seem to be there for the uncontrolled portion of his day.  The kitten is quite entertaining to watch.  He loves to attack their 100lb black labrador dog all the time.  Guinness, the dog, just looks at the cat with amazement and doesn't respond.

Jane, Montpelier & Grant

 Since we lost electric power, we went out for dinner at a local Mexican restaurant.  Gerry enjoyed her meal, mine was ok (what can you do to ruin a burrito?) and the others weren't that impressed with their meals.  The fish ceviche was good, but Gerry makes it better.  Oh well, you win some and lose some.

By the time we returned to their home the power was back on, so we visited for a while and finally decided to hit the road.  We ran into a very heavy rainstorm all the way back to the motorhome and had to slow down to keep from hydroplaning.

The roads near the campground had large amounts of water standing in the road and there were small river like amounts moving at high speed.  We finally arrived back at our nice and dry motorhome and collapsed.

That was our day, how was yours?