Gully lovers
Our only refuge was a small, 3-foot deep, sandy erosion gully.
Laying in a watery ditch during a lightning storm was not a choice
option, but there was no choice to be made.
So all five of us hunkered down in the gully and waited for the rain.
While we waited, Brian pointed out that we were sharing the gully with a few of the hybrids, so I made profit of the
time by taking this photograph.
I managed to take another photograph of this hybrid, but when the raindrops started hitting my camera I
stowed it in my water-resistant bum pack.
And then the rain came, and it came hard! For about 30 minutes
we lay in our little pathetic excuse for cover, open to the sky, completely soaked, while rain coursed over us and
lightning crashed all around.
Beth and I curled up with our electronics hidden in a hole we burrowed into the wall of
the gully. Randy was tucked against another edge, and Brian hunched over his video camera like a
hen incubating its eggs. Jim reclined in a nook of the gully, with his small beach towel over his head. I can only imagine
the dark thoughts passing through his mind---remarkably, a few years earlier Jim actually
caught on video a double strike of lightning in his backyard,
a blast which fried most of the wiring in his house and even threw him backwards!
But all the while, during our vigil of discomfort, we cracked jokes.
