What A Day

Yesterday's two inches of rain cooled it off here, so it's a chilly 60º morning with a brisk northerly wind and a choppy lake. I was up at 6:30 and was off to breakfast in Bemus at 7:50. It's now 9:20 and we are listening to Michael Smerconish set up the possibilities of tonight's debate and it's too choppy to go kayaking. 

Thursday was an interesting day, especially the afternoon. The morning was our usual although we did not get much done, either inside or outside because we were driving to Euclid at 1:00, to see my sister with a stop at Trader Joe's. So I got in a good paddle, with a couple of great shots of osprey and a heron. The rest of the morning we did little things, like the laundry for Evie and leveling the privets for me. I had the leftover cheesy broccoli and baked potatoes for lunch, showered, and briefly napped.

6:45

7:24

We left at 1:00, stopping at Trader Joe's first and the trip started fine. Just as we were getting to Erie, it started to drizzle and by the time we passed,  it poured, then became torrential and lasted for the next forty-five minutes until we got to Painesville, Ohio. We kept our emergency lights on the entire time and twice, the road slowed down to one lane. We could barely see the trucks in front of us and often were going 35 to 40 mph in a 70-mile zone as trucks roared by in the passing lane. It was the worst driving experience I can remember and I even thought about turning around and driving home. It let up, however, as we neared Painesville and just drizzled so we continued on to Trader Joe, on Chagrin Blvd. It was raining as we parked so we ran in and shopped in a very crowded store. Obviously, it's a favorite store for lots of Ohioans. I bought three cases of two buck chuck, now a little less than six bucks a bottle and Evie added a cart full of goodies.

We left in a light rain and couldn't get our fix of Slovenian sausages because Azman's on 200th Street was closed on Wednesday for some reason. It was great to see my sister Linda and her husband Rich since we had not seen them since December when they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. We caught up on all their kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids, except they have two! We love their house, with its view of Lake Erie and we sat around enjoying a glass of wine until Rich went outside to finish barbecuing ribs. 

A View Of Lake Erie

I joined him, holding the umbrella as it was still drizzling. Their eldest son, Richie, joined us for dinner and it was good to see him. His youngest son just graduated from Dayton and his oldest is back from a couple of years piloting yachts in Florida. Dinner was great, the ribs tender and juicy, along with potatoes and coleslaw. Dessert was strawberry shortcake, a perfect end to our dinner.

By 7:30 I was starting to get tired so we bid them adieu and thanked them for the great dinner. We drove back to the lake, wondering if we would hit rain again. Fortunately, we didn't but thunderstorms hit the Chautauqua area a few hours before us because the roads were wet and our rain gauge showed two inches. It turned out to be both a frightening day and a good one. We were exhausted when we got home, unloaded the car and both of us went to bed.