Crazy Cloud

As I drove east across Pasadena yesterday morning, having dropped my daughter Grace at school, I noticed this strange cloud. The sky was an intense blue with a lot of bright white cirrus clouds stretched across it. But ahead of me was this dark cloud, low near the horizon, that looked like someone had taken a handful of gray charcoal and smudged it, diagonally across the low sky. I kept looking at it, as I drove, wondering if everyone around me was noticing it too.

An hour later I was hiking up my usual path and the same cloud was still sitting in the east, but now it was dumping rain. There was no sign of rain anywhere else in the sky, but this funny cloud was definitely letting loose. The light all around was that almost eerie golden light that can happen before a storm and there were deep rumblings in the distance. Smog was making a rainbow along the skyline. I stopped a pair of women on the path just to say, "Isn't this amazing? I've never seen anything like this before in LA!" (They agreed and kept walking.) It is so unusual to see a maverick cloud like that, especially in SoCal, especially this time of year. I continued up the hill.

When I reached the top an hour later, the cloud seemed much closer, the light was still incredible and the rumblings were louder. Didn't think much of it. I thought I might feel a few drops of rain but the rain didn't seem to be heading my way. A bit later as I headed back down the trail I felt a few drops and thought, with an already disappointed feeling, "Oh well, it will probably not amount to more than this light rain."

Well, as if to prove me wrong, that crazy cloud started dumping big drops on my head and just as I was about halfway down, it said Hello! I was approaching these three mega electric tower things and as I was about a hundred yards away, lightening struck the wires between them with a crack of thunder so loud it sent my body up into the air a few inches. I started laughing at my jumping bean self and let the air under my feet propel me into a sprint. I didn't want to be under those towers if it struck again. (I know, I know, lightning doesn't strike twice...)

I kept up the pace for the rest of the way down, the big drops drenching me to the skin, listening to the thunder travel farther away fast, laughing out loud as I enjoyed the rare and exquisite sensation of running in a real downpour.