weathered
I woke up at 7:30 am to blue skies.
But the outlook for Almonte, where I live, was ominous.
Thunderstorms would – or rather could – roll in by 1 pm. Weather persons and their forecasts have become more circumspect as the weather has waxed unpredictable. (Hardly surprising. Few of us enjoy being wrong.)
I had an hour-long zoom meeting at 11 am. Perhaps I could get some riding in before and after the meeting and avoid the thunder and lightening. I puttered around for a bit, geared up and was on the road headed west toward Pakenham by 9:15 am.
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My plan was simple: ride through Blakeney on the back road (county 17), gas up in Pakenham, take Waba road to the junction for White Lake, turn right toward Arnprior, take another right onto the 417 just after the Antrim truck stop, yet another right off the 417 and onto the 29 back to Pakenham, left over the five-span bridge just before the village and home (again via the Blakeney back road) in time for my meeting.
It was a good plan.
Looks like it’s raining in White Lake I thought to myself as I rode under a cloudless sky along county road 17. Never mind. I’ll be turning away from it and headed home before there’s any chance of getting wet…
I stopped just before the turn to the five-span bridge for a quick chat with a friend who has been feeling poorly and then filled up at Karson’s in the village.
“You think it’s raining in White Lake?” I asked the attendant.
“Could be. Don’t know.” He replied.
I shrugged, paid for the gas, got back on the bike.
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They’re resurfacing the parts of Waba road they didn’t do last year and, at the moment, it’s one lane for quite a stretch – maybe a kilometer. By the time I got to the ‘other’ side of that bit, I was about three kilometers from Waba and it was looking really dark in the direction of White Lake.
I stopped to take some pics of the resurfacing (and TheFox!) got back on the bike, continued on for about another kilometer. Now the sky was BLACK in front of me. A bolt of lightening. The crash of thunder. Better turn around.
I had to wait at the road works again, of course. As I was sitting in the queue, it started to sprinkle. Rats. By the end of the one-lane bit, it was raining hard.
Before I got to the big sweeper halfway back to Pakenham, I was getting hailed on.
Instead of making a left at the 29, I turned right because the 29 is a faster route home than the back road through Blakeney and the sky was clearer to the right than it was to the left.
Good choice. The rain soon stopped, the wind dried me and I was home in time for my 11 am appointment.
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The storm reached Almonte as my antique clock struck twelve. It poured ‘cats and dogs’ all afternoon. Ottawa was flooded. Streets became canals. Vehicles were abandoned in waist-high water.
I went out again at 6 p.m. Not a cloud in the sky for two hours.
This time, I got back before I got wet when the storms re-started just after eight.
© 2023 Susan Macaulay. I invite you to share my poetry and posts widely, but please do not reprint, reblog or copy and paste them in their entirety without my permission. Thank you.
