Gee, thanks for thanking me. By the way, when I had kids, I left the city and raised them in the mountains. They were free to be kids and my oh my, what a difference that made.

Yesterday, my daughter called. Did I want to go for a hike? Yup. My girl and her husband picked me up, and it started raining. By the time we hit Red River Gorge it was pouring. No worries, we ordered lunch and joined a crowd of people at tables under the outdoor canopy.

The hiking trails up are inside a dense forest, which means the canopy acts like an umbrella for a little while, then turns into a fountain as the rain drips down through the understory. We decided the take the sky chair to the top and hike up topside.

Even awesome can't get close to describing how it felt to be flying through those tree tops in a rainstorm. Exciting, energizing. Free as a bird.

The bluffs were filled with pools of water, the leaves were glistening like icicles, the air was so, so, so clear. The temperature was hot enough to make us grateful to be soaking wet.

And then magic.

Out in the distance, the rain had reached the ground and fog was rising up from the forest floor. This happens when cool rain hits warm earth (old time moonshiners round here, used to wait for the fog to clean their stills which caused steam).

I'm getting old enough, for my kids to do their protective thing, so nope, there would be no hiking back down in the dark. After eight hours in the land of serendipity, we headed home.

My kids actually think this is normal.