Tag Archives: thunderstorms

local news

What a visit!

Now, that’s what I would call an eventful visit … so that’s what I’ll do.

I ventured to West Texas and spent a couple of days visiting four of my best friends on Earth. They are members of a Rotary International Group Study Exchange team I accompanied to Israel in May-June 2009. We have stayed in touch for the past 16 years and they have become part of what we call our “familia.”

We enjoyed some barbecue, a steak dinner with another couple I have known for many years. We reminisced about the month we spent in one of the most marvelous places in this world of ours.

Then, this afternoon, after enjoying a fantastic lunch at a famed BBQ joint in Olton, Texas, we got in touch with a young man and his wife — two more friends of ours — in The Netherlands. The young man was part of a Dutch team that toured Israel with us and we also have remained close.

That wasn’t the end of the excitement … for me. I took off around 2 p.m. expecting to arrive home in Princeton around 8. Hah! I ran into two thunderstorms, one along U.S. 82 as I approached Gainesville, and then along U.S. 75 just as I turned south in Sherman. It was violent, full of lightning and thunder and deluge-scale rainfall. The wind that preceded that first storm was so intense I seriously thought I would witness a tornado. Yes … I was frightened.

My six-hour home turned into a nearly eight-hour trek.

I so thoroughly enjoyed seeing my good friends, people I love dearly. We all went through a lot together on our tour of Israel. It will stay with us forever.

environmental news

Happy Trails, Part 105: Bring on the thunder!

Years ago, when my wife and I committed to moving to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, we expressed the hope we might get to revive one of the memories we had when we lived on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Today, it happened.

My wife and I are huge fans of thunderstorms. We love the sound of thunder. We just heard a huge clap of it right overhead. Directly!

Our conclusion is that the relative humidity of the Metroplex atmosphere — compared to the dryness of the Texas Panhandle air — is going to produce the kind of explosive weather we enjoyed/endured while we lived in Beaumont.

There was one storm in particular in Beaumont that I recall. It was a doozy. What did my wife and I do? We hauled our lawn chairs to spots under our carport and sat there, just listening to the thunder and watching the lightning streak across the sky.

I know what you’re thinking: Are those people nuts?

Actually, we’re quite sane. It doesn’t take much to please either of us. Mother Nature’s tempestuous is one of the joys of life we enjoy.

Sure, we had some beauts blown in over us in Amarillo. We had to replace the roof on our house just three years after we built it because of baseball-size hail that pummeled us. And, yep, the lightning was damn loud that day, too!

We are hoping for more of that kind of thrill — perverse though it sounds — as we settle into our new digs just north of Dallas … although the hail can stay away!