My most vivid memory of the August monsoons was when we were backpacking as a family. We always hiked into Chicago Basin and the old City Reservoir during those shortened hiking days and invariably were crossing a pass above timberline or scrambling down a scree field from fishing an alpine lake when the first lightening bolts would hit. My mom and brother were always beacons of calm as they took deep breaths of the sulphur smell of lightening and washed their faces and hair with rain, giggling with delight. My dad and I on the other hand turned into parkour ninjas and took the straightest line into the trees, crouching and ducking and terrifying marmots and pikas who would write and share myths of giants in oiled rain ponchos and huge backs flying over them as if the world was ending at that very moment. I grew up convinced there were only two kinds of people in the world, those who thought dying from lightning above timberline was poetic and really ok and those who refused to stick around and find out.
My most vivid memory of the August monsoons was when we were backpacking as a family. We always hiked into Chicago Basin and the old City Reservoir during those shortened hiking days and invariably were crossing a pass above timberline or scrambling down a scree field from fishing an alpine lake when the first lightening bolts would hit. My mom and brother were always beacons of calm as they took deep breaths of the sulphur smell of lightening and washed their faces and hair with rain, giggling with delight. My dad and I on the other hand turned into parkour ninjas and took the straightest line into the trees, crouching and ducking and terrifying marmots and pikas who would write and share myths of giants in oiled rain ponchos and huge backs flying over them as if the world was ending at that very moment. I grew up convinced there were only two kinds of people in the world, those who thought dying from lightning above timberline was poetic and really ok and those who refused to stick around and find out.
Yeah… all those data centers and housing developments on public land? Riiiiight