Adventures with a Few Spotty Showers

Saturday was an unusually cool and overcast day. On Friday night’s news, the weathercaster—bless ‘er heart—said we had nothing to fear. Only a few spotty showers here and there.

So Saturday afternoon I threw my bike in the back of my pickup and took it to a biking trail in The Big City. By the time I got there a big, thick cloud was turning pretty black. But the weathercaster had said…

Then at 4:30, darkness covered the neighborhood. Fireflies were flickering like midnight. No matter, I took off down the trail for an invigorating, calorie burning ride. The trail ran along a creek and cut into a deep, thick forest. I thought I felt a drop of rain. Well, the weathercaster promised spotty showers, didn’t she?

It was a beautiful ride in that dense, dark forest. It really was. Then, as I rode over a creek bridge, that cloud let loose. Kansas can be proud of that spotty shower. It was one of the greatest cloudburst I ever got involved with. And believe me, I know a healthy cloudburst when I see one. In just a minute I was drenched.

I’ve never been in a forest when it rained. I never knew that when raindrops hit so many leaves it sounds likes raindrops hitting the roof. I coasted; just listened. There was no other sound—only raindrops riveting the canopy of thick leaves above me. God and his handiwork. It was quite a pretty sound.

I passed a dry spot on the trail. What? A dry spot? I turned around and returned to the dry spot. It was just big enough for me and my bike. I looked up and saw leaves so thick, hovering from both sides of the trail, that I could stand in a downpour and not get wet. An occasional water drop slithered down through the leaves. One or two landed on my shoulder. A gentle wind gust blew some my way, but all around me fierce, flying water bullets blasted the open trail. That moment was noisy and quiet. It was wet and dry.

I was in a time and place that I probably will never visit again. I looked up toward heaven, but couldn’t see anything. I smiled, awed. I felt like saying, “You so totally rock, Lord!” But instead I just raised my hands to him and said, “This is some spotty shower.”

Saturday night, the weathercaster—bless ‘er heart—reported that the area where I was received two inches of rain in just twenty minutes, while just four miles down the four-lane only a tenth of an inch fell.

Spotty shower, indeed.