The turnaround is at the bottom of that arroyo.
I looked out various windows, considered clothing options, added and subtracted layers, clapped on a sun hat, stuffed a North Face rain jacket into a day pack, then dropped the pack onto a chair, muttered, “Aw, fuck it,” and went out for a walk.
A glance to the north of where Comanche Road NE meets Trail 365 told me I probably should’ve left the sun hat on the chair and taken the pack, maybe given the rain jacket some gloves and galoshes for backup. The sky was blacker than that shrunken chunk of boiled batshit Tucker Carlson uses for a heart.
Too bad, so sad, I thought. Onward.
The view north after my U-turn.
Wasn’t long before I heard an occasional “pok” from the brim of my superfluous sun hat. Pok. Pok, pok. Pok, pokpok, pok. Etc.
I decided to pull a U down by the bridge. And as I turned to face the north without my North Face, I said: “Holy hell. I am gonna get wet.”
Now, this isn’t a long walk. Just under an hour depending upon how I want to do ’er. But all walks are long when it’s pissing down rain out of the north and you don’t have a Gore-Tex shell with hood concealed somewhere about your person. Just a stupid fucking sun hat.
Happily, it wasn’t raining quite yet. So I double-timed it, or maybe time-and-a-halfed it, jogging the uphills and flats. Hup hup hup. Try not to break another ankle, shit-for-brains. This time you’ll have to swim home.
About 30 seconds after I hit the door, boom. It started raining. For maybe a minute.
Shit. I don’t know why I keep holding on to this stupid fucking rain jacket.
Tags: Foothills Trail 365, North Face
Mad Blog Media 
April 28, 2021 at 6:25 pm |
In an arroyo with rain threatening? How much did you get today?
April 28, 2021 at 6:36 pm |
It actually turned out to be a pretty decent little rain with a soupçon of sleet for sauce. Our weather widget reports 0.40 inch.* Official tally was 0.26 at the Sunport.
And what, you never surfed an arroyo in April? Cowabunga, man!
* By 8:30 we had 0.46. And it’s still raining.
April 28, 2021 at 8:53 pm |
We got an official 0.03 inches of rain. Whoop de doo.
April 28, 2021 at 8:54 pm |
Good for you. Our gauge in the back yard showed 0.25. We wanted more of course, but we’ll take it. The mountains got more; it was still raging up the at 5PM. The timing is good because the fire season is coming soon.
April 28, 2021 at 11:29 pm |
“The sky was blacker than that shrunken chunk of boiled batshit Tucker Carlson uses for a heart.”
Can I use that? Perfect summation. And I’ll award you 500 points for coming up with it.
And the rain jacket? Carrying it with you is to keep it from raining. But you knew that.
April 29, 2021 at 8:09 am |
Use away, m’man. I liked that one myself. There is a musicality to it: “shrunken chunk of boiled batshit.” Even the slowest dog finds the kibble sometime.
And yep, a jacket repels weather in more ways than one.
April 29, 2021 at 7:52 am |
May I respectfully suggest that you review the NWS website. It has a very serviceable radar product, one that I use religiously.
April 29, 2021 at 8:10 am |
O, I do, I do. But I also like playing Beach Blizzard Bingo from time to time. Keeps things lively around here.