Sunday, April 15, 2007
Current mood: enthralled
Category: Life
I love living in Florida. I love the beautiful sunny days with blue skies, and temps in the 80's during the spring days (my favorite time), lush green growing things everywhere, tropical plants, wonderful life everywhere you look, fantastic birds and animals. Gators may be scary creatures but I think they are fascinating to look at, from the comfort of a car or truck that is.
But, I also love the wrath of a raging storm. I don't know if that makes me a freak... I know storms are full of danger and the P.C. comment coming out in me says I don't wish destruction or devastation on anyone but I still love to watch the storms.
I get a thrill seeing copious amounts of rain crash down, watching the wind blow full force bending all types of trees to and fro (some of these trees look like they'd be strong as a hundred men, some seem ancient and amazing) witnessing lightening striking time and again with enough power in each strike to light 150,000 light bulbs (want to learn more about lightening see http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Lightning_Power) and hearing thunder cutting across the sky and booming through everything in its path, its electric. (no pun intended) Its just amazing to watch and experience a truly strong storm.
I've always been fascinated by different types of lightening. When I was in junior high my friends and I would have sleepovers sometimes one of my friends parents would let us set up sleeping bags in the camper shell in the bed of her dads truck. Sometimes when we did that we could watch the heat lightening over the lower end of the valley in Pocatello. It was fun to watch. Kim (the friend whose truck we'd sleep in) was pretty okay with lightening considering she was struck twice.
But I've never seen lightening storms like I have while living in GA and FL. I've seen amazing storms living on the SE coast of GA and I've seen some great ones around Tampa Bay as well. Metro Atlanta gets some amazing storms too but unless you are in the car driving through the city you don't see as much, there are so many trees a large view is rare. (I think I-85 going right through the city is the best viewing area for an electrifying storm there.) There are plenty of trees around Lakeland but less of the tall thick pines that obstruct views, so when a storm rolls through you can really watch it happen.
Here in Lakeland when a storm passes through I'll open the blinds on the sliding glass door and I have a great view of the Western skyline for what seems like miles, granted that's looking over a couple rooftops but when we lived in Monroe I had to sit by the glass (a little to close for comfort, even for me,) that only offered a small view of the sky because of the trees.
While I enjoy the storms, Daisy dislikes the storms, we think she saw James jump when he felt a current from a nearby lightening strike come through the stove (we know she heard him scream,) that happened when we lived in GA. James was fine by the way, shaken up for a bit but fine. Daisy is improving now (after two+ rough years) if one person in the house is sleeping she'll pace a little then lay down and go to sleep. But today I opened up the laundry room so Daisy could pace and hide in there, that's where she likes to hide when she can't sleep through the storms. (It's that or my closet but I fear her loving my shoes as much as I do, granted I don't lick or chew my shoes, but that's how she shows love, right, so okay enough said.)
Then I took Bailey with me in the truck and we went out into the storm for coffee at Starbucks. He likes to ride in the truck with me. We got to see plenty of rain and the trees bending and blowing in the wind. We heard a little thunder but really didn't see much lightening today. By the time I got home the storm had died back enough to get in the house dry. I spoiled the dogs a little sharing my breakfast and let them have a little bit of coffee (Bailey loves coffee and I like spoiling him, I'm a sucker I know.)
So back to checking the weather to see when the next light show will be, in the meanwhile we'll be enjoying the returning sunshine and beauty of Florida.
Best wishes to you all for a great finish to a nice Friday the 13th weekend,
See you later allig8tors,
Currently listening : King Arthur By Hans Zimmer
