Haven't blogged in a while...

...haven’t had a whole lot to say.

Nicole’s been working at youth camp (some last week, all of this week), and I am unable to stay the whole time she’s there. So, this week will have a lot of alone time. Which is okay to some degree – I think it’s healthy for everyone, even married people, to be able to have just a little bit of alone time once in a while – but it’s really quiet around the house when Nicole’s not there. No, I’m not saying she’s loud or noisy...it’s just that when she’s not there to talk with, there’s no point in talking when it’s just to myself (although I will talk to her on the phone, when she has a signal). I do get to go back up there tomorrow night and stay through Wednesday afternoon, so that will be good.

Speaking of camp, I was up there yesterday when a major storm blew over us – heavy, sideways rain and hail, tornado warnings, etc. The camp director, who built that camp there more than 40 years ago, said it was the worst storm he’d ever seen during camp. A tree blew over and destroyed much of one cabin. There wasn’t any obvious hail damage to the cars, but the storm did knock the power and water out all night long.

I tell you, living here’s definitely an adventure. The observation I’ve made is that around here, when it comes to rain, it’s all or nothing. Whereas in Oregon, there are so many different grades of rain, drizzle, showers, etc. Growing up, whenever I would see a movie or TV show that depicted lightning as constant and rapid, with nonstop flashing and thunder, I used to think it was ridiculous; because in my experience, lightning was always on the horizon, and it only struck every 15-30 seconds or so. But here in Tornado Alley, a thunderstorm is a sight to behold. It’s kind of like being hounded by paparazzi, with the constant flashes and noise, only less annoying. Most of the lightning never hits the ground, but just leaps between the clouds. I call it “cloud-on-cloud violence”.