It's raining, it's pouring,

but we still found time for exploring. Saturday it rained and poured off and on pretty much all day, but we still found time to do a lot of exploring. I just don't have pictures of it, for obvious reasons. Thank goodness rain never keeps outdoor people at home.

This weekend found us at the Rifle River area, in a place neither of us had been and the weather was perfect for keeping the bugs down and the crowds away, which gave us the freedom to explore with complete abandon. It was way too much fun and did we ever have good laughs going on. And what the heck is a railroad ballerina anyway?? I'm telling you, that's just the sort of thing that happens when you can't hear the other speak clearly and your mind formulates what it thinks it heard. I still laugh about it.

There was a break in the weather Sunday morning, but my goodness, did we have the heat and humidity! You could hardly walk without dripping sweat. Still, we climbed to the top of the observation deck to check out the view. We walked down to the fishing dock.


We hiked the path to Scaup Lake and found some great fungus and flora along the way.





We decided to save a better exploration of Scaup Lake for another time. Perhaps in the fall when the air is crisp and the woods are full of color?

This is the Rifle River from later in the day. It was so hot that as soon as a breeze would blow away the mist, more would form from the cool river water evaporating.

So, on the drive home we got caught in the most amazing storm I have ever experienced. We were driving down the highway through a torrential downpour and my traveling companion had just commented on how odd it was that there was no wind when, wham! We got pounded by the wind and it just kept getting stronger....and stronger.....and stronger. It seemed like the trees were going to bend sideways. Brent tried to use a semi-truck as a buffer for the wind, that is, until he thought the truck was going to blow over and he was forced to hit the brakes hard and pull off the road. Holy cow! I have never seen sustained winds and rain to that degree. I should have been scared and I probably would have had I not been trying to figure out how to change my camera setting to get a video. Unfortunately, by the time I had it figured out the wind was dying down and we could see the trees again. Later, the weather channel said it was 60 mile p/hr winds. Are you kidding me? That's all? I swear, how some of you people ride out hurricanes and typhoons, I will never know.