2020 Life Logs, Day 225: Unexpected Rain
Date: Thursday, August 13, 2020
Weather: Sunny AM, Overcast PM with Rain; High 84, Low 67 F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
Our plans for spending a glorious sunny afternoon at the beach ended before it began. The morning was beautiful. I packed lunch and snacks for a full afternoon at the beach, but as I drove into town to pick up the boys up at noon, the sky suddenly clouded over. And some of those clouds looked very stormy. We have had almost no rain for weeks now, so I ignored the clouds. I was sure it wouldn’t rain. We arrived at Wood Neck and had no trouble parking. That should have been my first clue. Others obviously knew something I didn’t and had stayed home. The boys headed out to the beach side of Wood Neck to use the skim board on the sand flats. I walked out onto a sand spit to watch them and then walked back to get their boogie boards as they headed further out to dive into the waves. There was still no sign of sunshine, but the water was warm and the boys were having a great time. We headed back to the beach to have lunch and on our way it started sprinkling. The sprinkles turned to light rain, so we decided to take our things back to the car and have lunch in the car while we waited for the rain to pass. By the time we got to the car, it was pouring rain. We got in the car and I gave everyone a Greek yogurt to eat while I made roll-ups. Uh-oh. I had forgotten to pack the tortillas. We thought about just rolling up the cheese and salami/pepperoni and eating it that way, but I suggested we drive to the nearby West Falmouth Market to get tortillas. We agreed that if the rain didn’t stop by the time we finished lunch, we would go get dry clothes, scooters, and skateboards and go to my house to shower and wait for the rain to go away. If things dried out, we could go to the skatepark. When we got to Heather and Jed’s to pick up clothes, we found it hadn’t rained there at all. By the time we got to my house, it was just beginning to sprinkle, but there was no pouring rain. Showers took a bit of time and the rain had stopped, so we decided to drive about 30 minutes to Sandwich to check out their new skatepark. We got there and it looked like fun, but there were just too many people. We stayed long enough to try it out and then headed back to Falmouth to our skatepark. It was dry there, but by this time it was 6 pm. We planned to spend 45 minutes there and then head home for dinner, but after 30 minutes, it started sprinkling. I heard Sam say to Jonah and Ollie that we should leave as it was getting slick. And just as he was saying that, Jonah’s scooter slid and he went flying across the pavement. Ouch. His elbow took the brunt of the skid and was bleeding quite a bit, so we immediately headed home.
?
He had been practicing a new skill and was doing great. And it wasn’t the jump that got him. It was simply slippery pavement at the beginning of his run. I learned an important lesson at Jonah’s expense. Never, ever, let the boys scooter or skateboard when there are even just a few dibble dopps of rain.
I’m not sure what Jonah will feel like doing tomorrow. I’m thinking maybe we will drive to Plymouth to have a take-out seafood lunch and see the Mayflower at the dock. Friday is not the day to do this as the traffic getting back on the Cape could be ugly. So maybe the boys will come up with some other low-level activity giving Jonah’s elbow time to heal. The weather this weekend and Monday looks iffy, but starting on Tuesday, it looks like sunshine will return. Next week is our last week of August to go to the beach as the Goldstones head to Maine for the last week of August and the first week of September. After that, we’ll just have one more week of Camp Oma Afternoons before school of some sort begins. So, beach days are precious as summer 2020 is winding down.
