Driving in a Deluge

I'm back in Tampa this morning, preparing for my flight home, which takes off at 7 p.m. I'm ready to return to Dave and Bailey, though I'm dreading taking her to be spayed, which will be my errand on Tuesday morning. She'll only be able to take short, easy walks for the next week or so, and we'll have to keep her from chasing squirrels in the garden and jumping up on the furniture, which is not going to be easy for a dog with Bailey's energy levels! Of course she'll be on painkillers so that will probably mellow her out a bit.

Yesterday morning I spent time with my brother's family including my oldest niece, who is living at college now and came home to see me. We all went to lunch at a barbecue place where I got a sandwich that looked gigantic but didn't fill me up as much as I was afraid it would -- I guess a pile of shredded meat has a lot of air pockets in it! That's my theory, anyway.

I got on the road in mid-afternoon and promptly ran into this:

Not just rain, but blinding, pounding, torrential rain that prevented any of us from traveling very fast. And it went on and on and on, especially between Daytona Beach and Orlando. I wasn't exactly white-knuckled but a person does get tense in those conditions, so a couple of hours of it was pretty exhausting. By the time I got off the interstate and took a more rural, direct route to north Tampa -- the top photo was taken near Lakeland -- the rain had mostly stopped and I could relax more.

When I got back to my stepsister's I was ready to settle down with a movie ("Magnolia," a perpetual favorite) and chill out.

I have no idea what I'll do today. I have a few minor tasks to complete around here, cleaning up the guesthouse, and maybe I'll catch up in blogland before I head to the airport. It's not great weather out there, gray and humid as heck, so I don't think I'll be stomping around anywhere outdoors. Coming to you tomorrow from London, insha'allah!