Anodyne
Wednesday, August 08, 2012
 

Lightning Storm Rips Across Metro Vancouver

"Grouse Mountain, on Vancouver's North Shore, was forced to suspend its gondola for about three hours, stranding several hundred people on the mountain top."

Including our man, who made it out of the trees and into the lodge approximately 5 minutes before the second most spectacular display of lightning I have ever seen.  Torrential rain; wind; gigantic horizontal lightning bolts.  Lights flickering constantly, huge clouds of mist boiling up from Cap Lake.  It got dark fast.  Thunder directly overhead. Conversation dying down.  Silence, broken by the drumming of rain on the chalet roof.  Then voices, picking up again.

Little Japanese girl with thick black glasses and a terrible bowl cut, maybe six or seven years old, sat opposite me for a while, holding a very realistic-looking kitten doll dressed in an ersatz Little House on the Prairie gingham dress and bonnet.  Huge flares of lightning turning the sky white, thunder breaking all around, and she sat speaking very slowly and firmly and low to what was obviously a loved friend in a language I don't have half a dozen words in, but whose gist I caught immediately: I love you.  You'll be fine.

High-speed download @ 10pm.  Then a long walk back through the pouring rain, thunder further off now, to the lonely red Subaru at the far end of the lot.
- posted by cjb @ 9:30 AM


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