Caught

No, not caught getting into the candy. Or watching a movie when she should be exercising.

Shayla'd gone out for her bike ride yesterday afternoon. She tries to get out for an hour-long ride every day, though occasionally things happen that she has to miss it. And she'd missed the previous day's ride. So yesterday after catching up on some housework shayla changed & was out the door. There were some storm clouds in the distance that she noticed about 1/3 the way through the ride, but she didn't think much of them. Until she'd started heading home, and noticed that instead of bypassing the area where she lives, the storm was heading right for it. There wasn't much else she could do except flip the bike into a higher gear & start pedaling harder. Which she did. Only the rain caught her when she was about 1 1/2 miles away from home.

Most people would consider a summer rain to be nice, gentle, lazy. They've never been in the Houston area during a late summer rainstorm. It started out easy, but in a minute the drops were coming down so hard they were bouncing off shayla's legs when they hit. It having been a hot day, shayla was in shorts & a sports bra. Not much protection against the rain. In all of 2 minutes shayla, her clothes, and the bike were soaked. Turns out that legs make excellent funnels for rain-water to follow and fill one's shoes, as well. It's a bit weird, feeling one's shoes squish while you're biking.

So shayla just tucked her head down, pedaled her ass off, and tried to get back home as quick as she could. Puddles had already begun to accumulate on the road-way, so the cars passing by were giving shayla an extra dose of water when they passed her. Just riding through those puddles was something; shayla could feel the bike slow as it hit the density of the water. She moved onto the bike path when she got to the street that led home. Which was also interesting, given the rivulets of water coming off driveways and yards. Like biking through a stream. And the rain coming down just as hard as ever. That itself wasn't too bad, just awfully wet.

What bugged shayla was the thunder & lightening. Most of the time shayla was riding underneath tall trees, but there's one wide-open stretch that she had to go through that gave her the willies. The high-power electrical lines she had to go under in that stretch didn't help to comfort her, either. At one stage a bolt cracked directly over-head (she was under trees at the time). It's not often shayla screams from fear, but she's not ashamed to admit that she did so then. A little adrenaline in the blood's good for an extra boost of energy, though.

There was a slight delay at a major intersection that shayla had to cross, & then she got back home. It took her a couple minutes to get the bike locked up on the patio, & remove her shoes & socks. After dumping the water from her shoes (yes, dumping), she started to unlock the door. Kinda hard when your hands & knees are trembling, and you're panting hard from exertion. Master heard her though & let her in, "Didn't you notice we were fixin' to get dumped on, girlie?"

"Yes, Master, but shayla thought it'd bypass us."

Turns out Master'd tried to call shayla twice while she was heading home. She'd not heard her phone ring either time, the rain was that loud.

She made a bee-line for the shower, rinsing off the sweat & rainwater. Master was still laughing at her when she came out, asking if she'd had to warm up. The odd thing is, the rain that was falling had been warm.

The whole thing would have been more fun if shayla'd not had to deal with the lightening. Though she'll be passing up the opprotunity to ride in the rain. Something tells her he'd Not Be Pleased. She feels bad enough soaking her shoes the way she did this time around.

shayla