The GeekHiker

So the big storm that they’ve been promising all week has arrived, and I have to say that I’m not disappointed. Given Southern California forecasters propensity to, er, over-sell a little rain, it’s nice to see the storm live up to its reputation.

As I write this rain is falling in buckets outside and wind is blowing it up against the windows. Nice.

Having gone hiking on New Years (and I wasn’t even planning for the storm), I’m fully prepared to hunker down this weekend.

A selection of good books is at the ready. Copious quantities of hot chocolate (on sale at the grocery store last week) are on standby. A frozen apple crisp from a trip to Oak Glen last fall will be re-heated Saturday morning. The video store is only a few blocks away. And an outing to the local fish restaurant for fish and chips is planned.

Yep, all set.

Still, driving home through the start of the storm today, I did find myself thinking back to another stormy weekend with The Ex Girlfriend. Don’t ya just hate when those old memories come back to the fore?

Her parents owned a condo up in Ventura that we were allowed to use sometimes. We drove up on a similar stormy night years ago, the rain coming down so hard I could barely see the road along PCH.

At one point, out near Pt. Mugu, the lane striping disappeared entirely, and I found myself leaning forward, staring intently out the window of my little Corolla, hoping just to stay on the road, clutching the steering wheel with a vice-like grip. Thankfully, she sat in the passenger seat and didn’t breathe a word so I could concentrate. It was all a bit nerve wracking, knowing a wall of rock was on the right and the churning Pacific on the left.

But we did arrive safely, bought dinner from a Chinese restaurant, and settled in for a relaxing weekend.

I’ll admit to being a bit of a romantic at times, and the place was perfect for that: quiet, near the beach, fireplace, hot tub in the center courtyard, and pouring rain outside to set the mood.

So that’s the problem with being a die-hard romantic on a weekend such as this: it just makes being single reach a whole new level of suck.

So as a bit of a distraction, I grabbed the camera and headed out to the park, just to see what I could get.

Rain coming down between trees in the park

Water rushing down gutter – I like the surreal color and quality of this one

So there’s no romantic weekend for this storm. Whatever. It will rain again in the future. And there’s always hot chocolate to be had. 🙂