Lights Out

On my drive home from my hometown, at night, I watched a major thunderstorm brewing on the horizon. I watched amazing lightning displays for about 10 minutes before reaching the rain. Once in the rain, I had to slow down to about 40 miles an hour. Lightning continued to strike every few seconds, and some flashes were so bright as to momentarily blind me in the white light. I’ve never experienced that before. Was pretty cool in a scary kind of way.

At one point, while I was on an overpass through the middle of a moderate-sized town, with a shopping center on the left and another shopping center on the right, there was a lightning strike followed by the loudest boom I had heard so far. Immediately following the strike, all the lights on the left side over the highway went out. The only light was from the cars driving through the parking lots. The store lights, parking lot lights, signs, and traffic lights all went dark. I’ve never seen that from such a vantage point before, either. Was even cooler than the blinding flash (mainly because it didn’t carry the danger of me crashing my car).

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com