Two days and 10.55 inches of rain later!

We are way behind in getting travel posts published this summer because we're having too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

September 26 and 27, 2022

The rain that started last night, would continue through the next two days. We hunkered down in the motor home and continued to get weather warnings on our phones. We got a beach hazard statement, a small craft advisory, flood watch warning, a special weather statement of strong thunderstorms with gusty winds, and a marine advisory of water spouts over the water. Our view out the motor home window included increasingly larger water puddles all around us.

Through all this rain we learned a little about the local climate. This is called lake-effect rain. That happens when a cold front brings cold air that is just above the warmer water of a big lake. The warm water in a great lake can fuel rain for days! So we spent this first soggy day doing laundry, cooking, route planning for future days, and blogging. We obviously didn't get caught up, but we're less far behind on the blog than we were. After being in the motor home all day, at 6:00 p.m. we drove the three miles to Lake Erie to see waves as big as ocean waves.

Denisa took a few pictures of the sunset from the beach in the rain.

Mark took most of his sunset pictures from inside the pickup with raindrops on the windshield. We would get another weather report that let us know we had gotten 8.2 inches of rain today!

Now we are glad that this is a repeat visit instead of the first time visit to Conneaut. We had planned to revisit some of our favorite experiences from six years ago, so we gave that a try on our second full day of rain. It had rained all night long (again), and it was still raining when we left on an apple shopping trip. We drove east across the Pennsylvania state line in search of some good apples. The best deal was at Lehman's Orchard, where we bought a half  bushel of Cortland apples for $8.50. Most other orchards charged $8 for half that amount, so this was a great bargain! 

We stopped at three more farm stands, and bought concord grapes for $3/quart.  They are getting so much rain that the ripening grapes are splitting open. This rain is coming at the worst time for the vineyards. It is too cold for the grapes to ripen and they are losing sugar. The rain will delay the harvest until next week, and the farmer told us that the grapes might be no good by then.

After all our fruit shopping, we made the drive to Presque Isle State Park. This park is situated on a sandy peninsula that arches into Lake Erie. We drove right beside the trails where we had ridden our bikes on a very nice trail six years ago. Remember that it is raining 100% of the time, but we took this soggy picture in front of the Presque Isle lighthouse.

We looked out over the water of Lake Erie, thinking about the nice kayak trip we had taken here six years ago. But today our only option was to try to snap a quick picture of the Perry Memorial. Unlike the slightly soggy lighthouse picture, the sprinkles turned to heavy rain. You can barely see Denisa in the shadows in front of the memorial. We both got drenched by the time we jogged all the way back to the pickup.

After being inside for two days, we needed some exercise. So we stopped in at the local mall to walk the perimeter, eat lunch, and do a little shopping. It was still raining when we drove back to our camp site. It started raining here on Sunday evening at 7:00 p.m., and 48 hours later it was still raining. There was maybe one hour when there wasn't rain falling! We got 10.55 inches of rain in our two days in Conneaut, Ohio!