Roadside Ruins and Rain
As we travel towards the ancient granary, it begins to rain. At first, it is a mild drizzle, but then the lightning storm begins. I have no problem with hiking in the rain - it reminds me of my youth and the warm wonder of a Singapore monsoon, but lightning on the open desert is not a pleasant thought. Other than a few twisted and blasted juniper pine, there aren't a lot of tall things out there to help exchange a charge other than your natural salt column. The NPS recommends that the safest action for an individual is for them to return to their vehicle immediately. Failing that, they recommend that one get low and stay low in a sheltered location... but hopefully not in an area low enough to be prone to flash floods.
Zapped if you do, drowned if you don't.
We make a hasty retreat back to the car.
 |  |
Then it really begins to rain. For that part of Utah to be called 'the high desert', it has to get an average of nine inches of rain per year. In the month of September, it has historically received 0.83 inches of rain. I suspect it may have received four or five of those inches on that afternoon alone.
Thank goodness I brought my travel Scrabble(tm) set. We sat and played a close game for nearly an hour. For the record, I won by a narrow margin.