A Brief Digression on Vacation Weather

<b>4 May 2008</b>: sunny and warm.  The first real day of summer for Carrie and I.  We are in Washington DC, waiting for my parents to arrive in town.  We see that there is a baseball game between our two old teams: The Washington Nationals (formerly the Montreal Expos) and the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Accustomed to insane hockey ticket prices, we splurge for seats five rows up from third base.  The view is amazing.  It’s like HDTV.  You can see the blades of grass and the stubble on the players’ chins.

<image src=”http://sterneworks.org/guzman2.jpg”>

<b>31 May 2008</b>: We are in Minnesota at my father-in-law’s for a Rentschler family reunion.  It’s a nice sunny day, that is until everyone arrives around 6pm and an astounding hail storm hits.  We are glad that Louis hadn’t yet landscaped the yard, as it’s destroyed by hail.  It’s still warm out so as the balls of ice hit the ground they start to melt and form rivers of rushing water.  We stand out on the porch in awe.  Occasionally, an insane person rides by on a bicycle.  Two suburbs north in Golden Valley, one of my mom’s windows is actually broken by hail.  Days later when we return our rental car, we find a small dent in the roof.  We’re waiting for the bill . . . .

<image src=”http://sterneworks.org/hail2.jpg”>