A funny story...

I just have to share this story. It was pretty funny and fairly painful at the same time. Plus, we all need a laugh every now and then, right?

So there we were... sitting around our house doing absolutely nothing. Boring. Jacob has this obsession with climbing all the 14'ers in the state of CO in the next 5 years or so. He's been researching every website, previous climbers, routes, equipment, etc. It has been fun to watch, but it gets old after awhile. Especially since I am not so inclined to climb 59 mountains that are at least 14,000 feet in elevation. Whew!

I whine to him about getting out of the house as it's nearly 7 p.m. and the only rooms we've been in are his office and our room where I took a nap at one point because I was so bored. Not to mention our puppy, Tank, had been sleeping on and off all day long. We went to church this morning and that was the extent of our activities for the day.

I was hoping we could go for a walk or something but Jake had a better idea. "Let's ride our bikes to Wal-Mart!" I looked at him quizzically and ask, "What's at Wal-Mart?" He explains that he needs a new bike tube for his mountain bike and we need the exercise.

Wal-Mart is only 3 miles away, with a little hill in between. A quick little jaunt for a bike ride at 7 p.m. sounded fine to me. I walk out to the garage to get going when I notice that the sky is darkening with some rain clouds. "You know, we might get rained on," I mention to Jake as we get on our bikes. "No we won't, because we'll just come home if it rains." I'm not wanting to squelch his idea so I hop on my bike. Jake likes for me to get ahead of him sometimes so that he can catch up with Tank running close behind him. I start riding and the wind feels nice as I pedal along the sidewalks. I keep glancing over my shoulder to see where Jake and Tank are. I finally stop by a red fire hydrant, just at the top of the hill on Baseline Rd. I see them coming around the corner so I hop back on and continue riding.

We ride close by for a few more minutes. I felt a few rain drops but nothing major, so I just figured we would make it to the store and if it did rain we could wait it out there. As the wind picks up Jake yells, "Let's go back! I think it's going to rain." I see some lightning not far away and think that he has a good idea.

Not ten seconds after turning our bikes around, the sky opens up and the rain begins to pelt us. Literally. In my mind I'm thinking, Hmmm, maybe we should have kept going to the store and waited there. Or to our friends house, Kim and Greg, but they have company over so we should just go home.

I love rain storms. Sitting in my nice, warm, living room, curled up with a book or something. They are nice to watch from the comfort of your home as you listen to them pound against your roof.

I do not love rain storms when I am out in them. Riding our bikes INTO the storm was torture! Tank was still running faithfully behind me and I kept throwing praise over my shoulder as we rode. "Great job Tank! Come on buddy!!" I can hear Jake ahead of me yelling at the rain. I am yelling too.

The rain drops feel like hail driving into my skin at 100 miles an hour. I'm pretty sure I even saw some hail at one point. Jake said it felt like someone was throwing marbles at his face. I knew the same, stinging feeling. It was so painful to look ahead to where you were going. Rain was driving down at an angle right into our faces. I decided to keep my head down and watch the sidewalk that way. I would glance up every 30 seconds or so to make sure I wasn't going to plow headlong into a tree or someone.

We almost sought shelter in this little tunnel that's part of the golf course nearby, but I realized how close we were to home so I yelled at Jake to push on. "Let's just get home!!" He yelled back, "You're a crazy woman! But ok!"

We continued riding on, the rain lessening as we passed through the shelter of a few trees. I was thankful for the fact that we were riding downhill this time, making the painful pelts of rain go by much faster. I found myself laughing out loud the rest of the way home, certain that the cars driving by were having a good laugh at these idiots who chose to bike in the rain.

Until we rode our bikes into our garage, the rain continued thrashing at us like an angry man down on his luck after a poker game. I was laughing and Jake wondered what I had to laugh about. We looked at each other, realizing how sopping wet we were. I had dirt on the back of my tank top from the bike kicking it up. We could both feel water soaking our toes. Our shirts were dripping wet and my legs were red from the rain drops that had pounded them for nearly ten minutes.

After being home for all of two minutes, we look outside and realize that the rainstorm is nearly over and blue skies can be seen in the distance. Ahh, too bad we couldn't have watched it from the comfort of our home. But that would have been boring and this was too much fun.