Under the sky

The other day I was driving home and the sky got all dark and ominous.

I wasn't too concerned though, so off I went. Idling at the first stop sign someone threw a rock at my car. I looked around to see who had done it, but there was no one around. Thwing! Whap! Two more and I realize that they didn't come off the car in from of me or prankish kids: this is hail.

At first I'm amused as hail is fairly rare where I'm from and I dont pay it much mind. Then at the next stop the sloppy rain drops start. Calling them "drops" seems inapt and miserly. These were the size of sausage patties. Each intermittent drop glopping a large area of the windshield like batter for pancakes.

I keep going and then the rain hits hard. Now, I was here for the big snow storm week they had and that was nothing, but I got a little wigged out driving in this. Wipers on high, hail and rain battering the car, it was intense and very loud with the hail strikes. But let's be realistic: it was still just a rain storm.

On the long straight-away of my drive I was about 4-6 feet behind the car in front of me. I was in the middle lane, he in the right. His car was throwing up a solid wall of water on the far side- away from me. Apparently the water was just pooling on the side of the road and not draining and now it was throwing up a rooster tail wall for the last quarter mile.

This is all fine and good until we pass a cross street.

As we go through the intersection, the car in front of me hits a dip in the road and sends a gigantic amount of water directly onto my windshield.

This completely blinds me. For the first second I'm amazed, because the color of the water on the windshield is bright green- like pool water. Like I was dunked in the deep end. But as the pounding wipers struggle and fail to clear it I'm aware that I am sliding through a busy intersection completely blind. What if the guy to my right finally decided to get out of the puddle lane and changed over? This is a big road and I'm going 35 or 40. I slow down a tick and the wipers finally clear them out.

It reminded me of a time when I was surfing and the waves held me under. You're in this beautiful green space, and it only really lasts a couple seconds but time stands still as you wonder if you're getting out of this ok.

So anyway. The point is, it's crazy weather season. We had another banger last night so I set up my rig and spent some time watching it come in. I set up long exposures figuring the lightning was bright and fast enough that it would just illuminate itself. Drank a beer with my thumb on the bulb release thing and actually got one.