It's never dull, meteorologically speaking

There was talk of this area hitting 90 degrees Fahrenheit for the first time this year on Tuesday.  I'm not sure if we actually did, but it was close enough.

At least it was a good day to paddle and get wet.  I paddled out of the harbor and onto the Mississippi, where a south wind was producing some small bumps that I played around on.  I have to say that using my more stable boat out there has made such activity a lot more fun.

Some heavy rain moved through here yesterday, and when I looked at the Internet radar this morning I saw more headed this way across the state of Arkansas.  I went down to the river about an hour earlier than usual, hoping I could beat the worst of it.  Getting rained on isn't such a terrible thing, but I didn't want to be out on the water if there was lightning nearby.  I paddled down to the harbor's mouth, where I had an unobstructed view of the western horizon.  I could see dark clouds and what looked like showers across the river.  While I wasn't seeing any lightning, I could hear some occasional thunder.  Then I saw a bright bolt of lightning down around Presidents Island, and decided to head back toward the dock.  As I paddled northward there were some occasional lightning flashes, but the sound of thunder was taking some ten seconds to reach my ears, so I wasn't too worried.  When I reached the A.W. Willis Bridge, a couple of hundred meters south of my marina, I started paddling some back-and-forth laps beneath it and worked on my stroke mechanics.  By this time the rain was starting to come down hard.  Once my time in the boat reached 50 minutes, I returned to the dock and took out.  I changed into dry clothes under the marina's roof and hoped the rain would soon stop so I could put my boat away on its rack without getting soaked.  But the rain just kept falling and falling and falling.  When it finally slacked up a tiny bit, I quickly put the boat away and made a run up the ramp to the parking lot.  The rain kept falling as I drove home and didn't stop for good until after I'd finished lunch.  Then, oddly enough, it turned into a lovely sunny day in the afternoon; more thunderstorms are in the forecast for the next several days, however.

I'm starting to make some more serious plans for some travel next month, and I'll share them here soon.  I hope to include some racing in this trip.

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