Lightning and thunder and warm rain

We are up in the Appalachian mountains presently and there has been lightning and thunder and warm rain like I have seen in Hawaii too. 

It used to lightning and thunder a lot more on the northern California coast but not the last 5 to 10 years or so very much. This is something much more normal for Mt. Shasta and the Sierras especially during summers even though the lightning often sparks small and hopefully not large fires.

Anyway, we were trying to find a good restaurant and spent about 1/2 hour trying to find parking for the restaurant we wanted to go to. Then we realized because of the rain we would get drenched parking so far away.

Then we found another restaurant that is popular too but once again parking was a problem. However, then I heard about a secondary parking lot even though this was a business I noticed several patrons of this restaurant parking there. So, even though it said: Towing if you park here there must have been some agreement between the restaurant and the day business parking lot because at least 20 cars including my own parked in this (overflow)parking lot.

The only problem then is that I had to after dropping my wife off at the restaurant I had to trudge through the rain and lightning about 6 blocks or more up a hill to get to the restaurant and then after eating I had to trudge the 6 blocks down the hills (in my Crocs) in the heavy rain to get to our rental car to go and pick my wife up again.

However, the food was great and the place had great atmosphere and because it is Friday Night up in the mountains of the Appalachian mountains everyone seemed in very good spirits in more ways than one.

So, it's good to be traveling as long as I nap enough to try to adjust to a different time zone 3 hours different than my own.

The biggest difference for me is not at night but in the morning because everyone gets up 3 hours earlier than we do in California because they are 3 hours ahead of us time wise every day.