Sounds of rain

Boulder boasts something like 300 + days of sunshine a year, but today we have rain. It really started last night as I left work. Eric had a going-away party for someone at work so he was up in Longmont and I was left to bike home (meant we could use only 1 car and less gas).

As I rolled out from work, it was looking stormy, but in a patchy sorta way. I decided to swing by CoMuSpo to pick up the extra wiring harnesses for our new powertaps that Ryan I. brought in with him to work. This errand pretty much doubled my commute and exposed me to at least 5 times as many headed-home-from-work commuters (who don't see bikes so well) but it was a familiar route that I used to take home daily while in grad school and a nice change from the usual routes we currently take. Then, with about 2 mi to go, big, fat, wet drops began to fall straight down.

I was obviously on the edge of the storm. It was cloudy overhead, but not too frightening. In front of me, to the east, were thick, uniformly black clouds and occasional lightning. To my south, near the mouth of Boulder Canyon, I could see sheets of heavy rain falling. Above me, though, looked pretty clear. As the light changed green, I pushed hard on the pedals and made like a horse for the barn. The rest of my short ride, I flitted in and out of the big fat rain drops. The pavement was mostly dry still, but I knew I needed to maintain some urgency if I was to avoid getting soaked or struck by lightning.

I made it home. In the door, upstairs to change clothes quickly, let Izzy out back to potty, grab more clothes to ward of the mosquitoes, and then out to get the final garden planting done. And mow the back yard. Get the weedwacker out and edge, too, if there's time. And maybe sweep off the deck (it's cottonwood season).

But wait...what's that? Bigger, fatter drops falling very, very fast. Straight down. Hard.

Poor Izzy was huddled by the back door patiently waiting to be let in. And there was NO WAY those seeds were going in the garden until things dried out. The rain continued to drum on our roof up in the loft. I love the sound of a good rain! It came and went all evening. Meanwhile I puttered around the kitchen, making pizza dough for tonight and getting to chicken-onion curry. The yard work and garden planting left for a drier day.

This morning, the rain continued. For Boulder, this is a tad unusual. During outdoor Masters swimming, it kept raining. The swimmers had a fine time of it, we are already wet, but poor coach Kurt kept a towel on his head the entire practice. The rain made backstroke a bit interesting, but it also made a lovely, lovely splish, splash, splatting sound. Near the end of practice, the drops were smaller but more frequent, and they made tiny plops and rebounding drips as they landed in the pool. Except for the pace clock dying (seems to do that when it rains....) it was an excellent practice.

I wonder what sounds the rain will bring to this afternoon's track workout. Like Cathy (same coach) we have 200's on tap. Last track workout we did on a rainy day was in the afternoon, after the rain had stopped. In between sets I heard the strangest sound when the track started to dry. It was like Rice Crispies cereal. Snap. Crackle. Pop. I wanted to stop and listen to what the track had to say to me, but decided it would just be something like "go faster!"..... so I did.

-Amber