rain; Yay. Wind, look out!

This afternoon we got a reprieve from an oppressive hot humid day.  You know, one of those days that keeps you plunked down in a lawn chair under the cedars near the river's shore relishing the breeze but not having enough energy to do much else.  The reprieve came in the form of a thunder and lightening storm, dropping the tempt 20 degrees.  It's really not so big a deal as to warrant a blog post so let me explain what prompted me to write a post about this event.

The picture below of a placid river at dusk also displays for you  a  bench situated at the end of the dock.  Nice shot don't you think?  It's here for the purpose of comparison.  Oh, this shot took place 12 days ago on 19 July.

Around 2 PM this afternoon we looked up the river and could see the rain approaching from the west.  The position of the ship gave the scene the appearance of the ship dragging the storm along behind it as it sailed down river towards us.  For a few minutes it seemed as if the storm was confined to the Canadian shore and might pass us by but as the ship got 1/2 mile beyond us the full brunt of the storm hit us with a deluge of much need rain,  (we've been experiencing a significant draught here this summer) but the accompanying wind, thunder and lightening was disconcerting.  I was worried that the power would go out and I'd miss Michael Phelps win his silver and gold Olympic medals.  Well the power only flickered  for a brief moment and never really interupted the CBC (Canadian TV) live brodcast of the Olympics.

 Once the storm broke for a few minutes , I went out to my car to retrieve my backpack and on my return I espied the bench of the first photo above having been move a good 8 - 10 feet along the dock, flipped upside down and nearly dumped in the drink.  I went out to retrieve the bench and realized that this 60 to 70 pound piece had been moved by the force of the wind and was awed.