Hot, wet American summer.

Yeah, don't get excited by the title. It's just been really rainy. 

Saturday I was visiting friends a couple of hours away, and left at the perfect time to hit a torrential downpour. The forecast had warnings about this, but basically said it was a threat of scattered thunderstorms. 

Some scattered. 

I ran into it about twenty minutes into the drive, and it stayed with me until I basically hit the clubhouse turn. Flooding, sirens, flashing lights, huge gouts of water fountaining out from those crazy enough to drive in the right and left lanes and risk hydroplaning. A good time was had by all. (Note: No good time was had by any.) 

You think these August thunderstorms will last a couple of minutes and break up, right? Ha. Ha. He laughed hollowly.

Not my worst driving in the rain, though. I once had to speed eighty miles through the night in an endless Florida downpour to catch a flight. I was not as seasoned a driver then as I am now—had been driving for less than ten years at that point—and had never driven through such a prolonged hard-weather system. You know how you retain brief reels of events in your memory, like snapshots with audio? I had the radio on in the rental car to try to stay focused and calm, and I remember peering intently at road signs while Bob Seeger's "Katmandu" was playing. Wikipedia says, "The song was featured in the soundtracks of the 1985 film Mask, the 16th episode of Freaks and Geeks, the tenth episode of the eighth season of Supernatural, and in the 2009 documentary Journey to Everest." And in my drive from hell. I will always associate that song with that drive. 

This past weekend's drive was longer, but the rain was not as consistent. Still, with the massive shore traffic and the driving skills of others that have made the northeast famous, it was rosary time. 

In other driving memories, the only time I have totaled a car was hydroplaning in weather like that, driving to work. When it happened, I was alone on the highway in broad daylight. I was not surrounded by thousands of other cars in the darkness. 

I tried not to think about that. Instead I kept my focus on the lines and the car in front of me. 

You know how you settle in behind someone who knows what he's doing, going a proper speed? I did. In the darkness I memorized the shape of his taillights. I stuck with him. He was my new best friend. We would part somewhere up the road, and I would wish him well. But for now, he was the greatest guy in the world.   

The last twenty miles were almost anticlimactic, with the rain stopping. But boy, was I happy to see my house.  

So it was a heck of a drive, but by God’s grace I kept my head and made it home. Maybe that's an important lesson to remember for the less immediately dangerous but extremely nerve-racking months ahead. 

Last thoughts: 

1) None of these drives were my scariest. That one was caused by a light snow that was slick as ice. Literally wrecks all over the highway. My one-hour drive home took four of the craziest hours I have ever spent behind a wheel.

2) I was glad that the Beloved Mets' night game was on the West Coast and was only a couple of innings along when I got home. Because if I had been listening to the game later, when they blew a grand slam and lost, that might have caused me to crash.