California – Day 1 (July 19)

Yesterday I woke up to the wet blanket of humidity.  It made a habit of looming on top of Minnesota for a few days already, but nothing like yesterday.  By the end of the day I heard that the temperature peaked at 95 degrees, but with the humidity it was 120.

And I ran.  With the drip drip of sweat and dreams of a dry California I finished my shorter morning run.  Inside again I was greeted by a cool shower and bacon, toast, and eggs for breakfast with my family and grandparents.

The morning went by without a hitch until we got on the plane.  Our flight was supposed to take off at 11:18 and at 11:20 we were still parked at the terminal and listening to a flight attendant, in the language of broken intercom, tell us that we were instructed to remain grounded until a heavy storm blew by us.  Well, it blew right over us, just big enough to seemingly only dwell over the airport for an hour and a half.

I could literally watch the storm blow in and could even watch the sunny world just beyond our blanket of danger.  The sky looked like a table top of rolling, grey, burnt marshmallows.

Hail.  It came at us sideways, crab apple sized, with rain and lightening.  It all sounded like savage percussion in surround sound as the hail intermittently wailed on us, with the rain sheeting steadily against our metal shelter, and the lightening causing a base-like boom and a light show.

Then it left as quickly as it came and we made our way into the air with the parade of other delayed planes.

The sky was gorgeous all across the country with visibility to the ground the whole way.  I got to watch as characters formed in the brilliant cotton ball clouds and varying, colorful landscapes passed below.

A smiling otter

A dog… namely Pluto I think

A bunny laying in the clouds!

The Rockies

When we first landed in California I was not blown away, but I was startled by strangely bright colored pools of water.  Anyone know what they are for?

Then, as soon as I stepped outside, I was blown away by the perfect weather.  It was 75 degrees without a cloud in the sky—it feels like fall and looks like summer.

For dinner Dena brought us to a local Thai place.  We shared the most delicious Thai food we ever experienced.

We got back in the car and Dena decided to show us around a little.  We drove through a forest preserve and up to the top of a hill where I was startled by the breath-taking view of Uganda-looking rounded, rolling hills saturated with the golden glow of a perfect sunset.  Unfortunately, since I was only planning on dinner, I did not bring my camera, so it looks like I’ll have to make a trip up there again.