Thanks go to my editor Althefish. You're the best.
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I live by a state park. It has a nice road/trail in it. If you do the full trail, it's about 37 miles long. The park does have roads through it to make shorter routes, but I was planning on doing the full 37 miles today. I left a note on the whiteboard saying where I was going, grabbed my gear, checked my bike over, and hit the trail by 5PM. By 6PM I started to notice the dark clouds forming overhead. Crap! I checked the weather report yesterday; it didn't say anything about rain. Crap again.
I didn't get to worry about it for too long. A few minutes later the downpour started.
I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere, getting soaked, and it seems to be getting darker. I know there is a small shelter by the overlook ahead. It can't be more than 2 miles away, so I kick up the speed and head for it.
I ride my bike right into the shelter in under 10 minutes. It's maybe 6 feet by 8 feet, with a bench along one wall and another bench bolted to the middle of the floor. The wall facing the road is solid, but the other three walls face an overlook and have half walls with open space above it and an awning to keep the rain and snow out of the shelter. It's not much, but it's dry, and hopefully grounded, because the thunder and lightening just started. It wasn't supposed to rain tonight!
I do enjoy thunderstorms, but not being caught in them. Safe in the shelter, I'm sitting on a bench, watching the storm. I'm soaking wet, so I take my shoes off. I figure I might as well take my socks off; maybe they'll dry a little while I'm waiting. I take the socks off and wring about 4 gallons of water out of them before I lay them neatly on the bench to dry. I'm still soaking wet and the rain is not letting up. I look out the windows to check both sides of the road, and I don't see another soul out in this weather. Apparently they are all smarter than me! Feeling a bit nervous I take my shirt off and wring that out as well. For an article of clothing that claims to be made of 'moisture wick' material, it holds a lot of water. After getting as much water out of it as I can, I lay it neatly next to the socks. I sit there a few more minutes before I realize my ass is wet also. Sighing, I check the road again before I slip my shorts off. They get wrung out and neatly placed next to the shirt. So I'm sitting in a cobweb filled shelter, in my undies and bra, waiting out a storm that shouldn't even be here. Crap. This is not how I expected my day to end up.