We set out under dubious skies. Nana accessorizes with a fleece and rain jacket and I with my straw hat and sunglasses. It feels like the weather could go either way, and most probably both ways given sufficient time. The impetus for our excursion was to take a piece of outgoing mail up the mailbox. Friday had been thus far a pretty off and on rainy day overall. We had a fire going inside in the fireplace and a we enjoyed a leisurely brunch. Our cabin is at the end of a long shared gravel driveway, and it’s a short walk up to the paved peninsula road where the cluster of mailboxes and newspaper boxes reside. So getting the bill in the mail was our overt objective, but the covert aim was more that it was an excuse for a walk to liven up our day.

So the three of us, Nana, Lake and I are out for a walk. We were nearing the paved road when I hear a vehicle drive up fast then stop. I guess it’s the mail truck, and sure enough it zooms by past our field of view at the end of the tunnel of vegetation. We are thus committed to walking down toward the end of North Peninsula Drive to catch her on the way back. Indeed we do. We successfully flag her down as she comes zipping back up the road and hand over our letter. 

Inertia has us continuing along down the road, and before we know it we arrive at the end where our friends Craig and Kathryn Ann live. We drop in unexpectedly for an old fashioned visit. Kathryn Ann is home so we visit and enjoy iced tea and coconut water with fresh mint on the welcoming porch. They have a beautiful view of the lake from their charmingly restored cabin on the point. I’m wearing my sunglasses and there are big swaths of blue sky and puffs and whisper of fluffy white clouds. Kathryn Ann has fun meeting Lake and singing him songs they wrote for their own blue eyed red headed baby boy who’s now 22 years old and living in the American Southwest on a conservation corps. Funny how they grow up! 

Nearing the end of our social call, as we are inviting them over for dinner tomorrow, the skies turn ominous and black. Nana puts her jackets back on which had been around her waist for the ride, and I prop my sunglasses up on my hat. The weather suddenly shifts.
It threatens rain our whole walk back and we duck down to the beach at the tip of our bay. It isn’t until we are crossing our next-door-neighbor’s beach when the first gigantic raindrops begin to fall. Nana takes a quick documentary photograph, and then we scurry up the steps to our side porch as the hail arrives with a vengeance, driving down with unrelenting fury. One of my hands covers Lake’s soft head and the other his tender feet, and we dash into the cabin. We look out as the hail and rain sheet down, the wind torrents, and the electric lights flicker. We are secure and dry and we don’t lose our power; we make it in the nick of time! 

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We relish the exhilaration and anomaly which is our stormy weather reprieve. The afternoon is filled with reading by the fire, hot chocolate and popcorn, a real contrast from our hot day yesterday, and our hot summer days likely looming again on the horizon. The calm comes later, after the storm, when the surface of the water is completely glassy.