When the Rain Stopped

Ed and I had arrived in Erie, Pennsylvania, just before the rain storm hit. We had returned to visit my son Chris after our tour through Canada. Our plan was for Chris to act as our personal fly fishing guide and enjoy the season’s end of the steelhead run. That evening when Chris visited us in the coach, we checked our rods, inspected our flies, and made plans to wet a few lines.

The rain began shortly after Chris said “Good night.” The downpour pelted the roof of the coach through the night sounding like popcorn exploding in a metal pot. As I lay awake in my bed, I wondered about the effect the weather would have on Walnut Creek. Would it make conditions too muddy to fish or would the stream rise just enough to make conditions ideal? Around midnight, the noise stopped. “Ah, no more rain,” I thought as I drifted to sleep. In the morning, Ed pulled back the coach privacy curtains. “Hey,” he said, “Someone put a bunch of wet Kleenex on the windshield.” Then, he quickly corrected himself. “Hell! That’s SNOW!”

Big flakes of wet snow were still falling. The flakes were so dense that visibility outside only reached a few feet ahead. And, on the ground, snow measured eight inches deep! The pelting sound of the rain had stopped because the rain had turned to snow!

Having lived in Texas for the past seven years, our experience with snow had been minimal.* We actually became giddy with laughter. Here we were in our coach in the snow! Our guide advised us to use our money to buy a snow shovel instead of the Pennsylvania Tourist Fishing License! There’d be no fishing even though the rain stopped.

November 5 – 6, 2007

* (There was one time when Whitehouse, Texas did have a dusting of snow. That was when Suzie’s roommate Nicole visited in April 2007. Suzie had promised Nicole sunshine and warm temperatures. She got cold weather and a freak snow fall.)