So - Rain storm tonight - I was caught downtown in a suit and nice leather jacket and shoes trying to get home. All of a sudden I'm wondering about how I'm fifteen blocks from home. So I start thinking how many time have I heard the myth of putting a newspaper over your head to make it home. So I tried it tonight.

I actually doubled the paper because it was pouring. You'll be happy to know that after ten minutes it had only soaked to the 12th page after twenty minutes only the 21st page in a half hour. Anything less paper wise I would think twice. It will give you the basic time period for newspaper absorption. one to two pages per minute. It never made it through the second paper- so remember grab two.

Lastly the outside of the paper where the water runs off gets soaked faster than the direct inside.

Figured I'd share, Plus when it dries out I can read the paper or use it for the fireplace.

W.

Feel free to share your rain stories.

[This message has been edited by walexander (edited November 20, 2010).]
 

Upon leaving, my other friend and I got him into the car, and I drove us all back to my grandparents' home in the pouring rain. When we got there I realized that my grandparents were still very much awake and moving about in the house. The rain was standing about three inches in the street and the droplets were the size of golf balls.

However, I couldn't let us go inside with my friend hanging onto us and singing bad eighties songs with a slur. So we walked my friend through streets for about an hour beneath a torrential storm that never let up for one second. He finally sobered up enought to move his feet a little and hold back the singing. When we walked into the house we all looked like we had gone swimming in the ocean with our clothes on.

I told my grandparents that we had to walk a ways to get to the car and needed to get upstairs immediately to dry off and change clothes. We helped the drunken one quickly up the steps. They asked me if he was all right. I told them he wasn't feeling very well, but I'm pretty sure they knew he was drunk. The next day they asked him if he was feeling better and he said he was, which was an even a bigger lie.
 

And the last two Sunday Write-ins for NaNo I was afraid I might get rained on. The case I carry my laptop in isn't water proof. Not very much anyway. I thought I may have to try to stick it under my light jacket and ran for my pick-up. But it didn't rain when I left so no problem.

 

My friend Donna and I decided to brave our first adventure in the Hoosier National Forest. Before then it was strictly rides in the nearby state forest, which was okay, but we had heard so much about the annual Ladies Ride held at the Blackwell Horse Camp just south of Bloomington, IN.

We arrived with the sun shining and nice warm breezes for mid May. Perfect weather for trail riding. We didn't have time for a long ride, and never having been there before, decided to go out for an hour or two and check things out.

The trail led us around the rim of ravines deep enough that we were looking at treetops far below. Beauty surrounded us everywhere we looked, and I felt like we had entered a virtual paradise.

Thunder rolled in the distance, but Donna and I had rain gear with us and pressed on. Clouds moved in. The forest darkened with the first raindrops pricking our arms. It felt like warm bath water. No problem, and we kept riding. It started to rain harder. By then it was too late to think about putting on raincoats. We were already soaked.

The thunder grew louder. Lightning flashed over our heads. I remember yelling above the noise that maybe we should head back. Stupid suggestion to make in a downpour, and we turned back.

The rain came down so hard that I couldn't see a thing through my glasses and held onto them with one hand with the other on the reins. Water rush along the trails forming them into creeks two to four inches deep. I push my mare into a fast trot. I would've liked to have galloped, but Donna had a fear of going faster than a trot. So on we went.

What a wonderful sight to see camp through the trees ahead of us. We unsaddled the horses and left them to weather the storm at the hitch rail. I forget what Donna did but I dived into my trailer's dressing room compartment and listened to the deafening roar of rain pounding on the metal roof. My jeans came off like a second skin that I hung over the clothes rack. My underpants were saturated enough that water ran from them like I'd turned a water faucet on low. That was without any wringing!

I grabbed one of numerous rags I keep in the trailer to dry myself and stop me from shivering. The rain had turned cold before we made it to camp. How good it felt to get back into warm dry clothes. My billfold had been in my back pocket. It took over a month for the leather to totally dry out (I still have that billfold BTW ). My non-waterproof watch never ran again.

The rain never quit that day, and Donna and I were tent camping. You've never lived until you spend the night in a tent in an all-night rain. Somehow Donna got soaked on her side of the tent while I never did.

Beleive it or not, we stayed for the entire weekend, tent and all. Thank goodness the rain quit about twenty-four hours after it started.

Talk about one heck of an adventure!