Rain in the Desert

It’s been very dry here lately, and the vegetation was looking alarmingly brown. All last week the forecasters kept promising rain (at least a slight chance) and cooler temperatures toward the end of the week, but it continued dry, with heat indexes ranging up to 110. On Saturday and Sunday my husband’s amateur radio club held its annual Field Day—when it “always rains”—without a drop.

Yesterday afternoon, however, we finally got the promised rain—a total of about an inch, heavy at times—with the result that it was a trifle cooler this morning than it had been in weeks. My husband and I have been going to “the gym” to exercise because it’s just too hot and humid outside to run/walk, but today I decided to hit the street instead. One factor was that my husband’s car was parked behind mine, blocking me in, and he wasn’t ready to leave yet. In addition, however, the last couple of times I’ve exercised at the fitness center I’ve been distracted by a woman talking loudly on her cell phone, so a solitary walk around the neighborhood seemed more appealing than the elliptical machine and wonky treadmill, especially since it was overcast and still fairly pleasant out.

And in fact it was not bad. The sun didn’t even try to come back out until just as I was returning to the house, and the air was not too oppressive, even though there was no appreciable breeze. In addition, for the last half of the distance I had some unexpected evaporation cooling from a rather wet T-shirt.

Despite the overcast, I hadn’t really expected rain, but of course the fun aspect of “scattered showers” is that they can be quite unexpected. As I climbed Fels Avenue approaching Summit, I felt a few drops, and as I turned the corner onto Summit, they began to pick up speed. Within the next block, I was into a pretty heavy downpour.

My hat kept the rain off my glasses, and it really felt pretty refreshing, so I plodded on (what other choice did I have, anyway?), planning to take shelter, if necessary, under the overhang in front of a row of shops in the next block. But as I crossed St. James Avenue, the rain suddenly stopped. Well, of course, it didn’t stop, as I could look back and see heavy rain still coming down behind me, but I had walked out from under that particular cloud.

The irony of it was that the cloud was parked over the stretch my husband and I call The Desert, the broad street/parking lot behind the K–1 Center where there is usually no shade at all. So of the entire 2.1-mile extent of my route, it was raining only in The Desert.

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