Always Another Storm

A couple of days ago I opened up my lap top, clicked on NOAA and learned that after weeks of storms and rain, the weather was actually going to clear out for a couple of days and be very warm and sunny.

In other parts of the country it can be storming one day and sunny the next, but in this part of the country those kinds of transitions never come easily.

Whenever there is a major change in weather patterns here, the change is always preluded by a major storm.

And so it went the other day.

We are currently embedded in work on our camper, and a few days ago LC was pulling on a piece of plastic trim that refused to give way.

Well.........eventually it gave way.

Violently and unexpectedly, and by the time it was done LCs' finger had been impaled with a very large and rusty staple.

After pulling out the staple we both watched as the two puncture wounds bled in an epic way.

Put some pressure on it.  I'll go get alcohol and a bandaid.

By the time I got back to the camper LC had succeeded in bleeding all over the damned place but the pressure was finally slowing the flow of blood.

We cleaned it.  We bandaid-ed it.  

And then we speculated about when the last time was that he had had a tetanus shot.

We had known each other for eight years.

No tetanus shot in that time.

We could already hear the familiar late afternoon rumbles in the sky.

Only this time the rumbles were not the signature sign of one more impending storm, that had become so familiar over these past weeks.

Instead this storm was the sign of transition.

Somewhere......sometime soon..........the sun would come out and it would be very warm.

Loading into the Tahoe we all three headed towards Blackfoot, and were astonished as just how ominous the sky looked.

If we had been living in Tennessee we would have been thinking about tornadoes.

In fact...........tornadoes were unusual here but not unheard of, and the sky looked angry and alive.

As we continued our journey south it quickly became obvious that this storm was moving from north to south.

The sky looked worse in Atomic City than it did closer to town.

By the time we reached the clinic we could hear almost continuous thunder that sounded as though it was getting closer to Blackfoot with each violent strike.....................

As has happened so often recently, my long-suffering dog was inconsolable.

As we both waited in the truck for LC to be stabbed by Nurse Cratchett, I watched my dog scurry from the very back of the Tahoe, to the back seat of the Tahoe, to the front seat of the Tahoe and then back again.

There was no safe place.  There was nowhere to hide.  And there were no words to calm her.

When LC finally made his reappearance we headed out of Dodge as quickly as we could.

Neither of us wanted to be in town and neither of us wanted to be out during this storm.................

The storm was definitely moving from north to south.

As we sped along the two lane highway back towards Atomic City I watched the sky, completely enthralled with it.

The dark and ominous clouds lay in a straight line in front of us, and every few minutes we drove through bands of rain.

I took many pictures and truthfully only a few turned out even remotely decent - either they were blurry from the speed we were driving, or they were blurry while taken through the windshield under low light.

Regardless I did manage to take a handful that at least partially show what the world looked like in this storming, electric, animalistic state....................

By the time the Twin Buttes were in full view the appearance of the world around us began to change yet again.

It was very dark but behind one of the buttes the smallest sliver of blue sky was visible.

The promise of things to come.

The ground looked white in places and for a while we could not figure out why. 

But the rain had stopped and the sky was beginning to calm.  No more thunder.  No more lightening...................

Within minutes we realized that the white we were seeing was hail.................

In our rush to get to Blackfoot we had left the living room, kitchen and mud room windows open.

By the time we got home we had a huge mess to clean up.

But when we were done that small patch of blue was turning into a bigger patch of blue.

Sunshine was coming.

A picture taken the next morning of one of our flowering trees in the yard by the side of the house...............

And pictures taken directly across the road from the house.

Three days of sunshine are about to come to an end.

And sure enough - and predictably enough - we were slammed with a violent storm late this afternoon................

There's always another storm. It's the way the world works. Snowstorms, rainstorms, windstorms, sandstorms, and firestorms. Some are fierce and others are small. You have to deal with each one separately, but you need to keep an eye on whats brewing for tomorrow............Maria V Snyder