Wild Storm

Our day yesterday was literally a calm before the storm. We had some on and off winds, but for the most part, it was a nice, sunny and calm day. That is, until around 6 PM. The skies turned very dark to the southeast and it looked like we would get a big thunderstorm. The skies were rapidly changing and we caught these shots of the southeast (notice the rainbow):

and the storm beginning to surround us as you can see in this shot taken toward the north:

All of this was happening while the sun was producing another beautiful sunset to the west:

We ended up not getting any rain out this storm and the reports we heard were that communities to the east of us - mainly, Scottsdale - received some heavy doses of rain.

Josie did some laundry and I made some modifications to the drip system and that about rounded out our work for the day. We are preparing now for our trip on Wednesday and we will probably take a trip to our storage unit to pick up our large suitcase. The airlines do not allow for any free checked baggage, so we will limit our checked baggage to one bag. We'll carry on our computers and some snacking food. It's not fun flying anywhere these days with all the extra charges and hassles at the airports.

The weather forecast in the Chicago/Naperville area looks great for the next week or so. We won't have to take our winter clothes and will most likely only take our light jackets and a couple sweaters to wear. The big unknown is the Saturday football game at Kalamazoo, MI. It seems to look good right now with a forecast high of 65 and partly cloudy skies. Of course, we know how the forecast can change, but we are counting on it to be accurate. We expect Austin and his team to win their 5th game of the season against Ohio, so the weather is secondary...