Anza-Borrego Evening

[Solly Mack]

10. I was in Mannheim. Loved it. Close to Heidelberg and not too far away from Frankfurt.

I was already snow hardened by Colorado and Kansas. We had major ice storms in Georgia and one horribly terrible blizzard. It was epic.

It snowed twice the entire time I was in Germany and even then it was nothing. Rained all the time though. Light drizzles mostly. I got used to them.

But I did get to experience my first up close and personal hurricane. It was weaker by the time it reached us but it did cause some damage. Things were flying about and I was mesmerized. I've been through tornadoes before but this was different.

I've lived in Florida and we had mild flooding from one hurricane that didn't make landfall but did cause enough wave action to flood the streets.

It rains a lot here too. Drainage sucks though. Puddles constantly. Sometimes the puddles become full blown flooding.

On the plus side, the rain brings the egrets. You'll find them on the sides of the road looking for dinner in the ponds that form. It doesn't take long for life to take hold in the newly formed waters. I thought it kind of pointless for the birds to look for food in the rain ponds until I stopped one day to take a look. There were frogs, turtles, and crayfish. A few days later when it mostly dried up you could see a few crayfish, maybe a turtle, and nothing else. Once it fully dried out - nothing at all. I kept checking. I had a curious.