the ride home...

my ride home from class this past weekend was interesting. as i mentioned earlier, sunday was calling for thunderstorms. the day started beautifully, sunny and clear. but shortly after lunch, we got heavy rain and hail. later in the afternoon, it had cleared up to be a nice afternoon.

now it was 1830 and time for me to head home. the sky was a beautiful blue with puffy white clouds. i called my wife to let her know i was heading home. she told me they've been having thunderstorms all day and we're getting ready to have another one. i was hoping i was behind the latest storm and could make it without getting too much rain.

that worked for a bit... about half way home, the skies got real dark and it started to sprinkle. barely sprinkling, but enough to make me start thinking i should pull over. i knew i would need to stop for gas, so it might be a good time to put on the rain suit as well. by the time i got to an exit and pulled up to a gas station, the sprinkling had stopped. but the sky hadn't cleared. i filled the tank and decided to get something to eat. after eating, i walked back outside and checked the sky - still dark, but still not raining. i decided to throw on the rain suit. if it did start to rain, i wouldn't have to pull over. at least not until the rain got really bad.

i made the rest of the trip home without any rain. i am glad i put the rain suit on as there was a lot of spray from the wet roads. maybe putting the suit on kept the rain away. either way, i'm glad i didn't run into any.

and it wasn't until the next day that i realized how lucky i really was. while i didn't run into any rain, the storms that did hit brought a lot of rain, power outages, and three tornados. one of which touched down less than ten miles from where i live.

anyway, i think i was pretty fortunate that i didn't hit any rain on the way home. and i think i'm thankful that i didn't really know what was going on around me. i may have worried about that too much and not focused as much on riding safely.