Day 227: Hot and stormy

Today well and truly lived up to its billing weather-wise. By the time we made it to the wonderfully named Up Yonda Farm the temperature was close to 90°F and humidity close to 100% I would imagine. We visited (in order) the composting water-less toilets, the butterfly garden, the wooded slopes and the lake-view-point (I couldn't decide between lake-view point and lake view-point). There wasn't much to see thanks to the haze, but on the way we saw Red Squirrels, Monarch Butterflies and at least 15 Wild Turkeys all together, so we weren't too disappointed.

Having taken the quick route back down the hill, we set off to find something for lunch, only going about half a mile before stopping at a frozen-in-time diner where they don't take credit cards and there seems to be a staff member for each customer, but the food was excellent, plentiful and inexpensive, so that's just fine.

After lunch, we made it to the lakeside beach where the cordoned-off lifeguarded area was crowded with groups of people standing variously up to knees or waists in the water chatting - an extraordinary sight, but then it was very hot and the cooler water and slight lake breeze made sense of it all. Exile #3 and Exile #4 set to work making a sandcastle without implements in a very labour-intensive way but did a good job, we had just managed to get everyone off the beach relatively sand-free when the storm clouds arrived and the beach was vacated (forcibly by the lifeguards). We tried to go to a restaurant for drinks and ice-creams, only to find that they had a power-cut. On our way back to the car the wind suddenly got up and we just got in before the heavens opened. As we drove out of town all the power was off (traffic lights etc. included) and the rain turned staircases into cascades and the roads into rivers.

As I write this I can hear sirens rushing to deal with the effects of the latest storm that just shook the windows and lit up the house for a few minutes. We seem, so far, to have got away with it this time. Never a dull moment.