The Shock of Experiencing Actual Weather

I am not used to weather.  In the interior West there isn't much weather -- not like, say, the Gulf Coast.  Rainstorms have become a distant memory to me.

That is why it was so shocking to get hit by a thunderous hailstorm at 5 a.m.

 The aluminum skin of a cargo trailer makes the hail sound terrible, but a third-of-an-inch-diameter hail does not actually do damage.  It accumulated on the ground to a depth of one inch.

Then the sky would crack open for awhile.  An hour later we would get blasted again.

  

 

I felt rather exposed to lightning, near the edge of a mesa 3000 feet above town level.

I had been careful to camp on a gravelled road -- not a mere dirt road.  So escape was possible.  

This experience only happens a couple times per year.  It is easy to walk around, dodging mud puddles, and feel a healthy-mindedness about the sun.  A lovely appreciation of the sun.