4:42PM, August 18, 2023 :: Tim Horton’s, Port Hawksbury, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada

Teardropper’s note to self:

Weather radar is a thing.  Use it, preferably before departure, so you’ll know to let the storm move ahead of you, rather than drive for 5 hours in the thick of it. Especially when your teardrop trailer is watertight when stationary, but a tich leaky around the doors when underway.  The leaks aren’t too bothersome in a light rain, but under a deluge…. well, it could have been quite unpleasant.

Fortunately, the four shammy towels I’d stuffed around the door bases managed to suck up the bulk of the water. (I squeezed out about a quart of water from them upon arriving in Port Hawksbury.) I’d bought the shammies over a month ago in Montreal for leaks I was having in the galley, but never needed them because it didn’t rain again before I fixed those leaks. It was even on my mind to return them. Thankfully, without any foresight of my own, I hadn’t.

And thank you so much, Ann L’Italien, for the brilliant gift of a waterproof mattress cover. The soaked shammies were right up against it, and the cover no doubt saved the shammies from transferring water to the nearly equally absorbent foam mattress. <mwah!>

Tonight will be a much more comfortable sleep for these two mitigating conditions. 

Unfortunately, though there was some great coastal scenery, the rain was just too hard for the Fuji. Too much rain on the lens. Even trying to frame with the phone was pretty challenging, but I managed to get a few shots in the few stops I made, getting absolutely soaked at this one and a couple others.  

In the feature photo, that’s not mist or fog obscuring the distant point and fuzzing the car’s headlights on the highway. That’s rain.  My raincoat, shorts and hat can assure you that I was getting hammered by it. It’s fascinating that rain isn’t apparent on photographs up close unless you shoot with a pretty high shutter speed, or the rain is backlit.

Lessons learned, and disaster averted by a little luck and and a thoughtful gift.  Despite the weather, not such a bad day as much of the scenery was quite spectacular, indeed, due in part to the weather.

Time to roll off and find a camp spot, and hope the ….

…hmmm, looking at the weather radar, the light rain outside is the leading edge of another storm cell coming through. There are some nasty colours in it.  Looks like it’ll pass through this area by 7PM, an hour and a half from now as I type this.

Maybe another cuppa, and another blog post?? 

I’m learning. 🙂