//------------------------------// // July 30 [Lost in a Storm] // Story: Silver Glow's Journal // by Admiral Biscuit //------------------------------// July 30 I woke up to my portable telephone ringing, and it took me a minute to know what it was. I guess Meghan was confused by it, too, because she also woke up and was trying to turn off the alarm on her portable telephone. By the time I got out of bed to answer it it had stopped, but it remembers who called and shows you. Meghan was sitting up in the futon and she looked a little bit grouchy, and I turned my ears and heard a familiar engine outside, and I saw that it was Mel who had called. It took me longer than it should have to figure out what was going on, and then I opened the balcony door and could feel the way the wind was moving and faintly hear thunder off in the distance. Meghan must have figured it out, too, because she had made her telephone show a picture of the clouds and the whole west side of Michigan was covered in yellow and red splotches. Just then my portable telephone rang again and it was Mel and I told him that I'd be down pretty quick and started scrambling to get my flight gear together. Meghan wanted to come, too, so both of us were scrambling to get ready. I got her clothes together for her while she was in the bathroom and then when she was getting dressed I filled my camelback and decided that I could put on the rest of my flight gear while we were on the way. It would be even more crowded in the truck with Meghan there, but she could help me get dressed. Mel shook her hand and introduced himself when she got in the truck, and we didn't have a lot more time than that because the storm was coming. Meghan said that quarter to six on a Saturday morning was far too early to be up, and I kinda agreed but what could we do? Back in Equestria, the weather team worked in shifts, but here I was the only weather-watching pegasus, so I had to go out when the storms came, no matter how inconvenient it might be. It was really weird to have Meghan dressing me while I sat on her lap. Fortunately, she knew how everything went on except for my GoPro, and once I explained it to her, she didn't have any trouble attaching it where it belonged. She said that she'd turn the camera on when we got out there, because she could do it for me. The two radios in Mel's truck were pretty active with updates from other watchers and warnings from the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids. There was a severe thunderstorm warning, a flood warning, and a tornado watch, as well as a small craft advisory for Lake Michigan. On our way out, he stopped at Tim Horton's long enough to get coffee for all of us, because he said that we both looked like we needed it. When we got to our watching spot, the gusty wind that I'd felt earlier had dropped off, but off in the distance I could see constant lightning in the clouds. We sat in the cab and drank our coffee, then I called the airplane directors and told them that I was going up, and Dori gave me one-time permission to go through the clouds and see what they looked like from on top. She said that I couldn't stay there; I'd have to go back down under them, but I could take a look and report back. So I flew up and once I was about a thousand feet up, I checked my radio with Mel and waved to him and Meghan (I'm not sure that they could see anything besides my blinking light), and then started climbing to the clouds. For once, I didn't have to watch my altimeter, and I didn't have to stop when I hit the bottom of the clouds. I pushed right through and kept going, my light giving strange flashes up in the cloud. When you're in a cloud, it's just like being in fog. Sounds get strange and distant, and smells are overwhelmed by the clouds itself, and it's pretty easy to get disoriented. My blinking light was not helping with that, either, because all it did was light up the cloudstuff around me. If there were any airplanes in this cloud, we'd never see each other before we collided. This cloud was going to grow into a thundercloud once it got a little bit more energy, but it wasn't quite there yet. Back in Equestria, we'd have been working on clouds like this to get them to drop what they had before they could pile up into a big stormcloud, but with just me here that wasn't going to happen. As I got close to the top of it, it started to get lighter, and pretty soon I broke through. I didn't have a proper perspective, since I hadn't been allowed to fly above clouds on Earth, so I couldn't say for sure how far away the front was, but it was a towering pile of anvil-shaped cumulus clouds, flashing with lightning all the way up to their tops. I told Mel what I was seeing, and then I told Dori on the airplane radio as well, and before I went back down I stood on a little hill of cloud and looked around me, since I probably wasn't going to get the opportunity to be on top of a solid cloud deck very often. Off to the east, I could see some rainclouds that had already passed by, and there were other big towers of cumulus all around me, so it looked like as far as I could see everyone was going to be getting storms. There were also some airplanes far above me, adding their own clouds to the mix. I could see an arc where one of them had turned to avoid the top of a stormcloud. When I'd gotten a good look, I punched my way back into the cloud and made my best guess for how far I'd drifted when I was above the clouds. Since I couldn't see anything on the ground through the clouds, I had no way of knowing where I was, and I couldn't even tell how strong the winds were up here. That was one of the most dangerous things about flying through the clouds over the ocean. You could land on top of a big mass like this and then when you went back under them discover that you were over the ocean with no land in sight, and no sun or stars to guide you back. With experience you learned to judge the drift, but I had virtually none here on Earth. The only thing that I did have in my favor was that I hadn't been up all that long and there was a lot of land to the east of me, so no matter where I was, there was going to be someplace to land. Well, it took me a minute to orient myself once I was back under the clouds. There was a big patch of forest under me, and I could see the lights of Kalamazoo off in the distance. It took me a minute but then I found the railroad tracks and the 94 Highway, and from there I could see where they crossed, and from there find our storm-watching spot. I called Mel and told him where I was, and started to fly back towards them. The wind had started to pick up, and then the rain started coming down, and it just got heavier and heavier, and I wound up going off-course because I couldn't see them at all. When the rain dropped in intensity, I could see the headlights of the cars on the 94 Highway, and I kept heading in that direction until I was over it, and flew back in that direction, then off to the west some more so that I'd be able to give some advance warning on the intensity of the storm. There was lightning and thunder all around me, and sometimes the rain was coming down so fast that I couldn't even see the ground at all. Keeping a roughly stationary observation point turned out to be completely impossible, so I kept flying back towards our spot whenever I could see it, but as the storm went on I wound up drifting far enough off course that I couldn't find it any more, so I just kept flying generally into the wind. Even when there was a break in the rain, it didn't help, because I couldn't see enough of the ground to orient myself. Kalamazoo was out of sight through the rain, and I'd lost the 94 Highway, and I couldn't see the 131 Highway yet, and there was nothing on the ground below me that was distinct enough to be sure where I was. At least the radio still worked, so I could talk to Mel and let him know what the weather was doing. I asked him if he could see me—maybe my blinking light would be visible through the rain—but he said that he couldn't. I didn't know how long I'd been up before the rain finally lightened up enough for me to find the 94 Highway again, which was behind me. So either the winds had shifted and I hadn't known, or else I'd overcompensated flying into them. And I still didn't know which side of our stormwatching spot I'd wound up on, because nothing around me looked that familiar. I guessed that I'd probably overflown to the west, because I thought that I'd probably have been able to seen Kalamazoo if I'd drifted to the east, but I couldn't decide if I should dive down until I was low enough to read the signs on the road, or just trust my instincts. I didn't want to lose my altitude, but I'd lose a lot of energy if I flew the wrong way. It was starting to clear up, and I knew that I'd recognize Kalamazoo from a couple of miles out, so it wouldn’t be that much of a waste of effort, I hoped. So I called Mel and told him that I was over the 94 Highway and I thought that I was southwest of him but I wasn't sure. He asked if there were any good landmarks, because he could look on a map and find them, and I said that I was over trees and swampland, and I could see some fields off in the distance and that there were a couple of lakes behind me and he said that he didn't think that was enough to go on. So I told him that I'd fly east along the 94 Highway and hopefully I'd find him again, and if I saw Kalamazoo ahead of me, I'd turn around and come back. I'd guessed right, because after I'd flown for a little while, still not seeing enough of the ground through all the rain to be sure of my position, he called me and said that both he and Meghan could see my blinking light. Before too long, I could see the bridge over the highway, and I felt a sense of relief. And then the heavy rain came again. I felt the cold wind suddenly hit me from behind, and turned back into it as sheets of rain washed over me. I lost all sight of the ground again, except for occasional flickers of lights on the ground below me, and once again I was completely caught up in the storm. This time it didn't last all that long, and when it cleared up a bit I could still see the 94 Highway, and I lost it again. The storm continued until noon, and sometimes it was really heavy and other times there was enough visibility for me to see the ground and keep my position. The gas station has a really tall sign with a white S on it, and that was a good landmark. When he finally called me down, I was completely exhausted. My wings were sore, I was starving, and I was completely soaked. Meghan helped me out of my flight gear and dried me off some, then we got in the truck and Mel stopped at the gas station and bought me a doughnut called a Krispy Kreme and also another cup of coffee. It wasn't the best food for an empty stomach, but it perked me up some, and on our way home, Meghan used her pocket telephone to order us a pizza for lunch. It was ready when Mel got to Papa John's, and I wanted to start eating it right then, because it smelled so good. Mel let us off at my apartment, and we sat on the futon and had pizza and then Meghan asked if I wanted to take a shower. I said that I wasn't sure if I did because I'd had enough of water for one day, and now that my belly was full and I was mostly dry, all I wanted to do was sleep, and she was yawning, too, so we got back in the futon and curled up together. I didn't want to lie on her 'cause my coat was still pretty damp, and I didn't want to get her shirt wet. She said it was okay, and that she'd been really scared when she lost sight of me up in the storm, especially when she'd heard me telling Mel that I didn't know where I was. I'd been a little worried, too. I'd thought that I might have to land and then have Mel come and pick me up, and I thought that would be really inconvenient for him. She said that he wouldn't have minded, and she said that they'd been talking and he'd suggested that I could get a wristwatch that showed where I was, and that maybe I should have one. I'd have to ask Mister Salvatore about that. We napped for a couple of hours, and when we woke up, after I'd stretched out Meghan insisted on preening my wings, which really needed it. I shouldn't have gone to sleep without doing it, and if I'd been by myself, I wouldn't have. I guess it was kind of selfish thinking of me, but I'd sort of thought that she'd want to after our nap. So she sat up and had me turn around and put my wing on her lap, and then she started straightening out my feathers, and I just nickered contentedly while she worked, and nuzzled her hip and side when she worked really unpleasant tangles out. When she was finished, we ate the rest of the pizza for dinner, and then we tried to decide what we wanted to do for the evening. It was still gray and overcast outside, although it had stopped raining hours ago. She said that she didn't really feel like getting dressed again, and we decided that after this morning I deserved to relax at home. So she moved the papasan so that we could both sit in it and watch a movie, and we watched one more Kung Fu Panda movie, then after it was over she got up and said that she wished that we had a bottle of wine. Well, I told her that I’d go and get one, and she decided that she wanted to come along, too, so she put on her pants and shirt but not her underwear because she said she wanted to be naughty. I think that the clerk at the counter noticed, ‘cause he kept looking at her boobs while pretending not to. When we got back she opened the bottle and took a drink, and then gave me the bottle so she could get undressed again.  And we sat back on the papasan and watched a third Kung Fu Panda movie and shared the wine, and by the time the movie was over we’d drunk half the bottle. We stayed in the papasan kissing and touching and nuzzling for a while, and I wanted to get up and get into the futon, because it wasn’t fair that I was having all the fun and couldn’t easily return the favor.  And she leaned down and kissed me and ran her other hand through my mane until I collapsed on her chest. When I finally got up, she got out of the chair and turned off my computer and put away the wine bottle—we agreed that we’d finish it up tomorrow—and I think she was kind of taunting me by taking her time going over to the futon, so I nosed her in the butt to motivate her. She sat down on the futon and said that she hoped that there wasn’t another storm tomorrow morning, and I agreed.  Then I got to thinking and even though I’d been trying to motivate her to lie down, I thought maybe in case there was, I ought to make sure that the camelback was filled and all my flight gear was laid out, so there’d be less scrambling in the morning if there was a storm. So I did that, and she checked her portable telephone and said that there wasn’t a storm forecast for tomorrow, which was kinda a relief.  And then she said that tomorrow we ought to see what kind of movie I got on the GoPro, so we agreed that we’d do that, and then we finally both got in bed and I teased her a little bit and kept my rump away from her at first.