An Adventurous Trip to the River.

      A few days ago (I believe it was Monday) Linda and I took two visiting grand children to Leslie Grove Park in Richland. It is a nice park on the Columbia River in the north part of town.  The purpose of our visit was to give Natalie (9) and Conner (7) a chance to cool off playing in the river.  As we arrived at the park I noticed the wind had picked up a bit. As I blew up an air mattress (shaped like a sea turtle) I was questioning the wisdom of letting the kids play at the river with this much wind. I knew there was no diplomatic way to be the wet blanket. Just as I was about to tell the kids that it was too windy, I looked down river and saw a big blur that was heading our way. It was like the sandstorm scene in the movie Hidalgo on a smaller scale.  You could see lightning and rain coming our way.

     The front hit about ten seconds later as the wind changed almost instantly from about 15 mph to 40 mph. We were running to the car as we were pelted by sand from the nearby beach volleyball courts. Shortly after we managed to get the kids and our stuff loaded into the car the deluge hit. Richland gets less than ten inches of rain in a year so it is a very rare occasion to see serious rain.  Instead of an afternoon at the river we settled for a bit of an adventure and a trip to Wendy's. 

     Our granddaughter Natalie is a serious cat lover and has been trying hard to win the affection of our somewhat grumpy cat, Mrs Buzz Saw.  It is a source of serious frustration to Natalie that Mrs Buzz Saw spurns her efforts to make friends. It irritates Natalie all the more that I generally ignore the cat, who responds by showering her affection on me. I'm not the one who dispenses kitty treats. I'm not the one who feeds her or calls "kitty kitty".  Yet I'm the person Buzz Saw follows around when I'm working outside. When I sit down to watch a Mariner game the cat always comes to me when she wants to be petted.   Natalie has made an effort the past few days to try pretending she didn't like cats. She was hoping some aloofness would help draw the cat to her. Sadly, she just couldn't pull it off. The cat seemed to recognize that Natalie's apparent apathy towards cats was insincere.