Holy Adrian Fenty, Batman! We are in a drought!

This summer has been awfully dry precipitation-wise by DC-area standards. Crops harvests are projected to be down across the region. 80 percent does not sound promising at all. Thunderstorms are supposed to be an at least twice a week occurrence in the early evenings during summers here. Not this year, only once have I not gone running because of thunder and lightning in the area. While I did get rain-delayed inside a Target three Sundays ago, with walls of rain coming down and lightning bolts flashing across the street, that may have been the only really nasty storm I've seen all year.

Two events this past weekend really reinforced my feeling that we are in a drought. Yesterday, I hiked with a group of people from meetin.org to White Oak Canyon in Shenedoah National Park (we hiked from bottom towards top). I don't have pictures developed yet, but the falls and pools below them were quite small. The streambed near the parking lot was, well, not a stream at all. No rain, man.

Today, I bought some ribeye steaks from Safeway on the way home from the gym. I put the fast burn, no lighter fluid needed, charcoal in the grill, fire it up, instant cooking heat! The problem was I noticed that the ground was near tinder dry. The flames were never in danger of spilling outside the grill and burning anything. but living in very dry Colorado for four years, I became reminded of how careful I need to be when grilling in very dry areas.

Final result: A fantastic rib eye steak and some chicken for the week's lunches. All in all a great day. The one damper was no rain after it threatened all day. I say that because we could really use rain. Finally, this has nothing to do with Adrian Fenty, his was the first famous area name I happened to think of.