It was a dark and stormy night

We had a mostly uneventful trip home. We packed up the car and stopped at the Coffee Booth on our way out of town for our morning fix. We saw a white car in Otowi Station's parking lot but it wasn't Sophie so we didn't stop. We drank our coffee and, as a result, had to stop at the McDonald's in Bernalillo. We filled up with gas in Albuquerque, ate lunch at Taco Bell in Grants, stopped at various rest areas, filled up with gas in Flagstaff and continued west.

The monsoon season apparently officially started June 15. It had been quiet so far according to this story (that you might have to register to read...besides you who live in monsoon region probably already knew that). I'd say it came roaring to life yesterday. We drove through some rain after we left Flagstaff and it was clearing up as we approached Kingman. There was some interesting looking weather to the north of town when we arrived. I thought it might be foggieness coming from rain evaporating from the desert. It turned out to be dust.

We had to get our afternoon coffee so we drove through town and found a Starbucks. While we were waiting for our coffees, the wind started blowing. Hard. The mat inside the door was flapping in the wind even though the door was closed. The door sang a mournful tune.

Then the rain came. They got an inch and a quarter in this storm and most of that probably fell (rather blew by...it was horizontal) while we drank our coffee. When it let up a bit we drove a few blocks and had sandwiches at a Subway.

The rain had ended by the time we finished eating. So we got back in the car and kept going.

The rain came back. It was extremely heavy for hours. We had to stop at a rest area because we needed to rest and get fresh air. We got quite wet running for the shelter. We waited for the rain to let up again then continued our journey.

We stopped at another rest area because the rain was so heavy we could hardly see. But that time we didn't take advantage of the services. We would have been completely drenched in about three seconds.

The rain continued, very heavy much of the time and sometimes it was a normal pitter-patter, almost all the way to Barstow.

The most amazing part of this storm wasn't the rain. It was the lightning. We had never seen so much lightning. It was constant, close, and was everywhere from horizon to horizon. We could see the scenery even though the sun had set long before. Who needs headlights when you have so much lightning?

We made it to Barstow and trusty Motel 6 had left a light on. They were down to smoking rooms. And it turned out that their air conditioning wasn't working. I slept fine but poor Jerry didn't.

We hit the road at 6:00 and got home by 10:00 after a stop at Tom's Farms and the post office. I got a jury summons!