My first hurricane...

...was a big disappointment. Or a big relief. Or some of each.

We lay in our cozy room last night, listening, waiting. Irene was due to arrive by early morning. We heard rain, then more rain. No wind.

We got up and looked at the forecasts. Things had slowed down a bit; now she was due late morning. We had a very nice breakfast. It was raining at a rate of two inches an hour. There were lots of flood warnings in the general area. New York was just feeling the force of the storm.

It rained.

It rained some more.

The air was still. The calm before the storm?

The other guest at the B&B we are enjoying is a guy from England who just dropped his son off to begin his studies at Williams. We spent a bunch of time this morning helping him figure out how to get home before Labor Day; his airline seemed to think that was the best it could do. We offered various suggestions & he will now drive to Burlington, fly to Chicago and head back to England from there on Tuesday.

It kept on raining.

Finally, we heard thunder. About three times, and with a little imagination we could see the wind building up. Then that subsided.

By mid-afternoon, I could see on the Doppler radar picture that Irene was already north and west of us. The rain got lighter. At about 5:00, some wind came along. Since then we have had a fairly ordinary rainstorm with gusty winds. The power went out for a couple of hours at dinnertime, there are a few small branches lying on the paths. That's about it.

Tomorrow we will check road conditions & move to our next destination. The weather is supposed to be wonderful.

No miles ridden, hardly any walking. Possibly the least movement I have experienced since my last flight to Australia.