Well, that was a decent dollop of rain last night!
I knew it was coming. I had time to plan, but didn’t much like the options. There was no good place to string a tarp, and besides, high winds were forecast. Unless you can pitch your tarp just right, the edges are gonna flap in that kind of weather. Or the wind will shift and push the rain in through your high side. One way or another, you’re gonna get wet.
There was a bridge just a few hundred paces behind me. You can stay dry under a bridge in a straight downpour, but not in a driving rain. Not to mention it’s dirty under a bridge. And if a river of rain does pour in, all that dirt is gonna turn to mud.
So I chose a grassy knoll and rolled out my sleeping bag in the open on relatively high ground. You want to avoid depressions and low spots,lest you wake up in a puddle.
I have a waterproof shell that fits over my bag. It keeps the rain off, but it doesn’t breathe, so your bag’ll get wet anyway from condensation. But the rain was only supposed to last a couple of hours, so I concluded to use the shell while the rain came down, then peel it off as soon as the rain stopped.
But the air stayed damp all night, and the morning brought a thick fog. I packed everything away still wet and got my miles in, expecting to camp early and dry out in the afternoon sun. Only there was no afternoon sun — just more rain.
If anything, today’s rain looked to be even more wild and wooly than last night’s. The wind blew as if it meant to whip up a tornado. The first sprays of moisture came sideways. And the rain hadn’t even started yet — that was just mist.
But the setting this time around was completely different. Instead of being canal-side on a narrow stretch of grass with no good cover in sight, I was in the city. And in the city, you’ve got options that aren’t generally available out on Wild Side.
Long story short, I went to the movies.
By the time I came out, the rain had passed over and the sun was hanging low in the west. I had just enough time to find myself a patch of woods to duck into before dark.
Wasn’t a bad movie. Fantastic Beasts Part III. Some pretty fanciful critters in that flick. I don’t know how people think up such improbable …
Ssh! Was that a five-legged catawampus?
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