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// July 21 [Afternoon Thunderstorm] 
// Story: Silver Glow's Journal 
// by Admiral Biscuit 
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July 21

When I woke up, I had chaff stuck to me everywhere, and my neck was a bit stiff, too. A good stretch worked eased up my neck, but the chaff was more of a problem to get rid of.

A shower wouldn't help; that would just make it wet and it would stick even more in my coat. That was a lesson I'd learned as a filly. A good, strong breeze would blow it right off, and since there wasn't much wind, the only solution was to make my own.

So I went out the balcony and flew up to about a thousand feet, then dove back down to just above the treetops, and did that a couple more times and I was mostly chaff-free.

I made an oatmeal breakfast and thought about what I wanted to do today.

It was a nice day for a long flight, I decided, and today I'd go west. That would make the airplane directors happy, and I'd get some good exercise. I could fly most of the way out to Lake Michigan, maybe even all the way.

I'd already measured on a map a couple of times to make sure, and it was about eighty miles from South Haven to Chicago, so if I was gonna fly that I would have to make sure I had enough endurance to stay in the air that far, and I wasn't quite there yet.

I was getting closer and closer to it, though.

My birdfeeder was a bit low, so once the morning crowd of birds had left to do their bird-things, I filled it back up then I flew over to Aric's house to make sure that his was full, as well.

When I got in the garage, I saw that someone else had discovered the birdseed—there was a small hole gnawed through the bottom of the bag and mouse poop and little bits of shells scattered around. Of course, I didn't notice any of that when I picked up the bag, and I left a little trail of seeds out the door and in the grass under the bird feeder.

Earth ponies put some of their food in metal boxes to discourage mice, and of course in the clouds we never had to worry about them. I wasn't sure if Aric had a metal box for his birdseed, and I didn't think that the mouse would eat that much, and the bag was getting pretty empty, so I decided that I'd worry about it later.

I was satisfied with my morning work, so I flew back home and got into my flight gear. My vest was especially nice, 'cause it was all clean and fluffy.

Once I was ready to fly, I called up the airplane directors and told them where I was going to go. The grumpy man was directing, and so I promised that I would stay below a thousand feet until I got past the 131 Highway and he said that sounded good. And then he told me to be safe, and keep an eye out for thunderstorms because the forecast was calling for them.

I said that I would, and before I flew off my balcony, I went back inside and strapped on my other radio, just in case I needed it. I was probably being overly cautious: right now it didn't look like storms at all, and the skies were clear as far as I could see.

I'd gotten over the 131 Highway and started climbing, and I was starting to see more and more clouds off in the distance. At first I thought that they were forming up over the edge of the lake and moving inland, but by the time I'd gotten to M40, I could see that they were popping up well inland, too, and it was starting to get thicker and greyer near the lake.

I decided I'd continue on and see what the weather did. And I also decided that maybe I'd cut my flight a little bit short if it started to look more stormy, since I'd have to be up in it and I wouldn't be very useful if I was tired from flying all morning.

By the time I got over Bangor, I'd decided that the clouds meant business. The main part of the stormfront was a little bit further over the lake than I'd thought, but it was really building, and I'd flown up to a couple of the scattered clouds and gotten a feel for them, and they were promising rain to come, too. They kept building on themselves as they picked up more and more water out of the air.

So the only sensible thing to do was cut my trip short, and head back. At least this storm had the courtesy to happen during the day, so I wouldn't be flying around half-blind, trying to figure out how big it was and how bad it was.

I angled south of Main Street and started heading towards the 94 Highway. My plan was to spot it somewhere before Mattewan, and follow it to our stormwatching spot.

By the time I got there, I was feeling a bit hungry, so I told any airplanes who were listening that I was going down and I flew low over town to see what restaurants they had.

I didn't find a Taco Bell, but I found a Pizza Hut, and since I hadn't had any pizza in a while, so I thought that would be a good lunch.

They didn't let you get individual slices of pizza, but they did have a small one that they called a personal pizza, and the woman who showed me where to sit and gave me the menu said that if I had any leftover, they'd put it in a box for me, so I got a Veggie Lover's and while I waited for it to be cooked for me, I tried to call Mel on the radio, but he didn't answer, so then I called him on my telephone and asked him what he thought was coming.

He said that it looked like we were going to have some thunderstorms, which might last all afternoon, and he was going to finish lunch and then come out and he could pick me up if I needed a ride.

I told him that I was already here, and about to eat pizza, and that I would go out to our spot when I was done eating.

Then I sent a telephone telegram to Pastor Liz, telling her that I wouldn't be able to make our meeting because there was a storm coming and I was going to be up watching it, and she sent me a telegram back telling me to be safe and I said that I would.

My pizza was cut into four slices, and I ate two of them right away and then tried to decide if I should eat the rest or take them with me. It seemed kind of silly to carry them with me, but I wasn't going to want to fly if I ate too much pizza for lunch.

So I decided I'd have one more, and then I'd save the last one in case there was some downtime in the storm and I got hungry.

My waitress put it in a little box for me, and I had to take off my vest in order to get it in the pocket on my camelback, and then when she brought me back a receipt for my dinner she also brought a little candy called a Starlight.

It was hard to get out of its wrapper—I had to pinch it in my teeth and work it out with my tongue to get it free. But it was worth the trouble, it was very minty.

Rather than fly, I crossed the street and followed the sidewalk until it ended, then I walked through a parking lot and since there wasn't any more sidewalk after that, I took off, being careful of the electrical wires that went right overhead.

I didn't get too high, 'cause I didn't want to burn a lot of energy on such a short flight, but even above the trees it was pretty obvious that a storm was coming. The clouds were getting thicker and the wind had picked up a little bit, and I could smell the rain that it was going to bring.

Mel's truck wasn't in the parking lot yet, so I landed and sat under a pair of trees and waited for him to arrive.

He hadn't come before I started to hear thunder in the distance, so I called him on the radio and he said he was about fifteen minutes away, and he was delayed because there was an accident at West Main and Drake that had half the road blocked. I told him that I was going to be up in the air when he got here, 'cause I could already hear the thunder, and I'd give him my next report from the sky.

I circled my way up, and took a good look at the storm front. I thought it would be to me in a half hour or maybe less, and from below it I couldn't see the tail end of it because of the rain.

That was one thing that was nice about being above the clouds; you could see where they started and stopped no matter what they were doing.

I saw Mel when he arrived, and I waved at him and I guess he didn't see me, 'cause he called on the radio and said he was here.

My half-hour estimation was pretty close.

At first, it was infrequent lightning, and then it started to pick up in intensity. The rain did, too. It started off pretty gentle, and then it got a little bit heavier, but it really wasn't too bad. I didn't expect that to last, though, 'cause it kept looking darker and darker.

I was glad that I could still see the ground through it, 'cause that meant that the gusts at the front of the storm didn't catch me by surprise. I could see trees bending, and right behind that sheets of rain, and I opened out of my circle and went straight into it, and even so I lost some ground when it hit me.

I heard Mel on the radio—I guess he'd just gotten hit by it, too—but I didn't have time to answer him, 'cause I was too busy trying to stay in the air. That was another thing that was annoying about having to fly under the clouds instead of over; the winds at the front got me every time.

When I'd straightened back out and the wind had dropped down a little bit I called back and told him that I was fine.

Even in the storm there were some pretty powerful gusts of wind. I did an unintentional wing-roll when I was banking into a turn and the wind flipped me, and when it had finally moved on after about an hour, I was soaked all the way through.

Since there wasn't anything coming behind it, I glided back down to the parking lot and stopped just short of a light pole. When I reached out with a forehoof, I got a nice big spark and the light flickered for a moment, which made me think maybe I should find something else to touch before I land. I guess their lamps don't like extra electricity.

I shook off in the parking lot before getting into Mel's truck, and he was nice enough to give me a ride back to my apartment.

Following a storm was kind of strange, because the sky was really dark, but on the ground everything that was on the ground in front of us seemed unnaturally bright, especially if it was white. When we got into town, the light poles in the Maple Hill Mall parking lot almost looked like they were glowing, 'cause they were so bright compared to the sky.

When I got undressed, I remembered my last piece of pizza, and I was going to put it in the electric icebox so that it wouldn't spoil, but the electric icebox couldn't save it. I'd gotten so soaked that it was hard to tell what was cardboard and what was pizza, and I finally decided that I'd toss it in the front yard and maybe some scavenger would benefit from it.

I took a long, leisurely shower, then I dried off and preened my wings. Even though I'd done dives and flown to Bangor and back to Mattewan and then flown in a storm, there was still a little bit of chaff that was stuck in my feathers.

I packed my saddlebags with everything I wanted to take to Lafayette, then I walked over to Meghan's apartment.

She had dinner almost made, which was kind of a disappointment—I'd wanted to help. But I don't think she would have wanted my help if I'd arrived a soggy mess.

Meghan told me that I was very brave to fly in the storm, and she said that when the wind gusts and heavy rain had started she'd been thinking of me and she asked if we had to fly in storms like that back in Equestria, or if we didn't have them because we made the weather.

I said that we didn't have enough weatherponies to work over the ocean, so we had to go up and deal with them when they came inland, and I was pretty used to it. I said that the most important thing to know was when to fight and when to let the storm carry you and here on Earth I wasn't always getting it right, since the weather was different than what I was used to, but I knew that I'd get it figured out sooner or later.

And I said that this time I'd only gotten flipped in one gust, and hadn't been driven out of the sky at all, so I thought that was pretty good.

When we were eating the grainloaf she'd made us, I told her about how I'd gone to the riding stables yesterday and gotten better at riding Hoshi and then I'd also gotten to do the obstacle course. And I thought that we ought to go horseback riding again sometime soon, and she said that she'd like that.

I helped her with the dishes, and then we watched Kung Fu Panda again, only this time we paid more attention to it. I thought it was a pretty good movie, and she said that there were two more that we could watch another time.

When we went to her bedroom, I thought it would be fun to help her get undressed, and I did pretty well except for her bra.  I knew that it was supposed to hook together in the back but I couldn’t figure out how to get the hooks detached, and she finally did it for me and told me that I shouldn’t feel bad, because bras couldn’t be unfastened by men either.