Conditions: Atrocious to Phantasmagorical

When we checked the forecast on Wednesday, it said that rain would begin around 4 p.m. on Thursday. So my husband deferred his weekly jog till Thursday morning. He wanted to go over to the gameland and run on the closed road near the shooting rainge, which you may see in this photo. I would go along, and walk and take pictures.

I looked at the weather map first thing and guessed that rain would move in by 10 a.m., so we got ourselves in gear. Well, guess what: our forecast was wrong. I looked out to see it raining at 9 a.m.! Hmm, what to do? Should we wait? Should we hurry up and go before it got worse?

In the end, we simply piled into the car and went. I took my camera and my umbrella and wore a decent pair of hiking boots. When we arrived at the gameland parking lot, I looked around in horror. Conditions were atrocious.

The path was a combination of ice ruts, rain on ice (so slick you can't believe it, and if you fall, by golly, you'll get a soaking), melting snow the consistency of wet sand, and gritty mud. It was gloppy. It was a total nightmare, and I had no idea how my husband would be able to run on it without falling and cracking his skull!!!! In fact, I wasn't sure I could walk on it either!

But we are tougher than all of that. And so I walked, carefully, mostly on the golden grasses and muddy bits just outside the ice ruts. And my husband managed to jog in much the same way, carefully picking a path out of the mud. As the rain came down, and increased, a ground mist arose that was almost phantasmagorical, it was so lovely and breathtaking. Forget the fog creeping in on little cat feet; this was a big white fog that took over our whole world!

At one point, I thought that the open road that is next to this one might have better conditions, and so I walked down a snowy, icy path between the two roads and tried the other one. That road was only slightly better in spots but quite icy in many more. By the time we were leaving, the fog was so thick and full, it was like a living thing; like a ghost that rose up from these golden lands and wrapped itself around us.

I can tell you that I am out walking (and he is out jogging) in any and all conditions, and these were some challenging ones. Yet it was invigorating to be outdoors, and the fresh air (and even the rain) washed us clean. And since I can't believe I got to use the words atrocious and phantasmagorical all in the same story, let's put them in the title, shall we?   :-)

My soundtrack song is this one: Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris, with All the Roadrunning. Here is just the song. Here is a longer version that I think includes all of the album's songs. Enjoy! (Some lyrics appear below that feel like they could have been sung to me by my husband on this day.)

A million miles of vagabond sky
Clocked up above the clouds
I'm still your man for the roaming
For as long as there's roamin' allowed