We just had an old-fashioned thunderstorm roll through. A pretty good one with lots of thunder and lightning, and I shut my computer down (for its safety) and went to sit in the glass-surrounded sunroom to enjoy it. It’s not often we have this kind of storm, and when we do it’s usually in the middle of the night. That’s another strange thing I can’t get used to here in New Jersey: a thunderstorm at 10 o’clock in the morning! I could hear the thunder long before the storm arrived, and it got as dark as night outside. Very creepy. When the rain finally started it was a cloudburst—I couldn’t even see the neighbor’s house across the street.

I took a photo of the radar after it had passed. If you look closely you’ll see a little pointer mark where our town is; just below the state line of New Jersey on the west side of that ominous red storm line! That’s what just went over us!

As I sat and took in the beauty of the storm, I felt the need to put down my thoughts. With the computer shut down I had to resort to pen and paper (gasp!). Here is what I wrote.

As I sit here in the sunroom surrounded on three sides by glass, we are experiencing a good old-fashioned thunderstorm. Something I’ve been craving for awhile. Lightning flashes all around me; thunder booms. Have you ever just sat and listened to thunder? Each clap is unique. Some are just a single earth-shatteringly loud BOOM! like those fireworks on the 4th of July that start out by being just an intense flash of light until the sound catches up and it ends with that amazingly loud BOOM! that you feel deep in your belly and shakes the ground beneath you. Very powerful. Others start fairly quietly and roll along seemingly forever until their sound just fades away in the distance, while others make a cracking sound that never amounts to much of anything.

Boy, I sure can type faster than I can write ...

Some people duck and take cover during thunderstorms, but I sort of relish in them (as long as they aren’t severe with hail or the lightning isn’t hitting too close). There is something exciting about the charged air they carry along with them. I know, I’m weird. Maybe I can thank my father for that. When I was little he used to hold me up to the window during a storm so we could watch the lightning display together so I wouldn’t be afraid. I remember it all so clearly; the Paul Revere curtains hanging at the living room window, the forks of lightning and the thunder, the warm secure feeling of being in my father’s arms.

The storm has been over us for about twenty minutes and Mother Nature is really having a good time out there—quite the drama queen today. But now the distance between the flash and the thunder is getting further apart and the storm is moving off, although it’s still raining.

When I booted the computer up again I saw that during that twenty minute storm it had put down .65 inches of rain. Right now our rain gauge stands at almost one inch. Not bad. There was a very wet and bedraggled turkey hunkered underneath the big oak in the front yard when I came into the computer room. Smart turk!  We are supposed to get more thunderstorms later this afternoon ... we’ll see. I do love a stormy day! How about you?

After the Wonder Wheel we took a walk on the boardwalk and out onto the pier for the view.

The now defunct parachute ride blooms like a leftover steel flower blossom at the foot of the pier.

And the amusement parks make a strange juxtaposition to the high-rise apartments in the background.

It’s very sad that as of yesterday, Astroland will no longer exist as it has been sold. This however does not appear to include the sale of the famous roller coaster, The Cyclone, which was made a landmark in 1988, or the Wonder Wheel,  but still it’s just another part of the past that seems to have no place anymore in our ever changing American society.

Our next stop had to be The Cyclone.

Let it be said that I am deathly afraid of roller coasters (and most other amusement park rides, other than the somewhat tame ferris wheel variety). I think it came about from a ride I took on a roller coaster at a local fairground when I was a teenager. For whatever reason, the bar in our car did not lock down and at every twist and turn of the coaster we threatened to pop out of it and it has stuck with me. It was a very scary experience that my brain can’t seem to rid itself of. I knew Rick wanted to ride it, and he knew that I couldn’t ride with him. How I wished it were as easy as not being tall enough to ride!

I stood watching it for awhile as it careened through its course, listening to the the clickety-clack of the wheels over the wooden tracks (which frankly sounded like the whole thing was going to come apart at the very seams) and thought for at least one very brief moment that I might actually be able to step outside of my fear and really do it. Then I regained control of my senses again and thought to myself: no, don’t do this! Rick had no problem going by himself. He knew my fear was real.

(Rick is fourth from the front in the photo just above.)

If want to experience the ride without really being there, follow this link to a youtube movie where someone videoed their front car experience on The Cyclone.

When he got off he told me it was a good thing I didn’t go with him. He said it was the roughest, most jarring ride he’s ever had on a coaster. Now that he’s ridden it once he won’t be going back for seconds.

Here is another great video clip of the Cyclone’s 80th Birthday (which happened last year).

It’s hard to believe that it’s now all come to an end. Soon they will have to remove all the rides and the carnival atmosphere will be no longer. I’m so glad we went to experience it when we did. There are rumors that the developer is going to put their own “bigger and better” amusement rides and such on the same site, but it will never be the same. An era has come to an end.

Just before the rain started in yesterday I spotted something in the yard. It looked too big to be a squirrel and it was grayish, standing up with its back to me. I got the binoculars out to take a closer look. Well, I’ll be—a woodchuck. The first one I’ve seen since moving here. I snapped this photo of him looking contemplatively into the back yard. He seems completely at home sitting there with his paws up on the railing. I think he’s adorable.

Shortly after this photo was taken, Hanna finally arrived. It poured sheets of soft, gentle, warm rain which came straight down with no wind. Our weather station was recording a little over an inch per hour. Lucky for us that she stopped in about four hours. Rain total: 4.39 inches!

The lights flickered a few times, but no power outage. I did have a few candles lit just in case, but we didn’t need them. We had some wind overnight but nothing out of the ordinary. Hanna was kind to us. She greened up our yard, filled our pool and made us all happy. I don’t know about how happy the woodchuck was about it all. I imagine he was pretty soggy wherever he was.

On the leading edge of Tropical Storm Hanna, the clouds last night put on a spectacular show.

This one looks a bit like a dinosaur to me:

We are expecting heavy rains today, so we’ll see what we really get. So far it’s very muggy and humid outside—like a sauna. We had a little misty rain overnight and this morning but so far not much sign of anything going to happen. So we wait ...

Did you guess our next stop correctly? The Wonder Wheel! Built in 1920 this 150-foot ferris wheel has been an icon for Coney Island since its inception. It towers over everything else and is visible from everywhere you go.

As we approached it was obvious that some of the cars were doing a lot of swinging back and forth and I didn’t think I was going to like that very much. That’s because this ferris wheel is unique. The cars on the inside track of the wheel are each on their own track and the movement of the wheel makes them slide forward and backward wildly, kind of like a miniature roller coaster. The cars on the outside (which there are fewer of) remain stationary.

Rick knew instinctively that I wasn’t going to like the roller-coaster like ones, (he knows me so well!) so he said he really wanted to be on the outside at the highest point for the best view. Bless him. We stood in the stationary line. The couple in front of us saw one of the stationary cars go past them with two buckets and a sleeping dog inside it. I guess he didn’t like the swinging cars either. We figured he was the ballast.

We went around once, stopping and starting as all the cars were filled, then when everyone was on board we went all the way around without stopping. Here are the views in each direction.

Looking behind us at the rest of the amusement park.

Looking at the beach.

Looking toward Manhattan.

And looking straight in front of us.

It was a pleasant and smooth ride, and as the cars above and below us swung crazily, I was glad we were in our stationary car at the top of the world.

Where to next ... ?