Friday, July 16, 2010

Normally, I’m not a fan of humidity. But today was the exception. I awoke early in my tent, pitched at the edge of the King’s River, to feel what was sure to become triple-digit heat—got to be 107 degrees. Now, I love heat, anything up to 130 degrees is great. But…it’s got to be dry heat. As soon as humidity kicks in, I wilt.

So when I stepped out of my tent into what felt like a sauna versus an Easy-bake oven, I wrinkled up my nose. Then I looked up to the sky to find it covered with windswept clouds in a colorful pallet of grays. It had the look of coming rain.

But rain never came. Instead, as twenty-five of us made our three and a half-hour float down the river, we were treated to a sky that was constantly morphing with some of the coolest cloud formations I’ve ever seen. Many looked like ones a skilled artist might paint. Others appeared similar to a swath of paint applied by a semi-dry paint roller. Still more looked as if a farmer in the sky had dragged an enormous metal rake across them, spreading the clouds into perfectly spaced line formations.

The temperature climbed to an impressive 107 degrees with a significant humidity level, which is something that I’d normally find hard to take. But today, what the humidity did to the clouds, or rather, how the clouds were formed as a result of the humidity colliding with high temperatures was incredible.

When our camp came into view, we all expressed sadness. Not only for having the float come to and end, but for having the delightful watching-of-clouds-as-we-floated show end. Perhaps nature will be kind enough to grant us a curtain call tomorrow.