Honey I'm home!

So we've made it back to Washington after a month long trip to California. The ride home was filled with Murphy's law though, and it was a rough trip to say the least. For example it Redding, CA where it was something like 113 degrees, our a/c fan stopped working. So even though you could turn the air conditioner on, and it was nice and chilly if you put your hand on the vent, there was nothing to blow the air into the cabin. That sucked, thankfully Phoenix slept through quite a bit of it. There was a period of time in which I felt sort of in a dream state. Upon returning my father said he could see in the car that I was getting sick. Apparently I had forgotten about my first bout with heat stroke. So in light of the climate control malfunction he decided to turn and head for the coast a little sooner than planned. It almost immediately started cooling off as we traveled west. Good thing too, because we got behind every single human on the planet who recieved their driver's license from a Cracker Jack box. We spent a goodly amount of time behind someone going nineteen miles an hour. But at least the whole route was under a canapy of trees. Oregon scenery is magnificent. Eventually we arrived in Newport, OR to visit my aunt, cousin, and second cousin who I had never met before. It was a first meeting for both Phoenix and Layla. She's two and a half. It was a short visit but I'm glad, because now we know that we only live 3 hours away from each other. Again we got behind all the lovely driver's on the road, but we eventually made it home.
What amazes me is the blistering heat right up until the sun went down even here. But by 10:00 pm we were in the middle of a lightning and thunder storm worthy of an award. And the lightning is different here. Mike's mom tells me it's not, but it is. In California, at least in my experience the lightning is in a very distinct bolt. In Washington it's more like the flash on a camera across the whole sky. And when it's cloudy it looks like there is a roof when the flash reflects off of them. Debby says there is more bolt lightning here usually, but I've never seen anything but flash lighting since I've lived here. Today it's raining and cool outside. I've already taken my first walk in the rain.