It’s a long drive from Our Little Red House to Kansas City. Arrived about six, took long long showers, went out for a late dinner, turned in late (for us — about ten).

Slept in, woke to a beautifully sunny morning. Freshened up, had a leisurely breakfast while we made plans for a day of strolling in the city to see the sights. Went back up to our room to get our things.

I came out of the bathroom to find B sitting in the dark. “Why’s it so dark?” I asked, just before I noticed the rain pouring down and heard thunder booming overhead.

“How do you like your vacation so far?” B asked with a smirk.

The rain was coming down so heavily we had to wait in our room until about noon for the storm to let up enough for us to go out without getting drenched. There was a brief lull at about ten-thirty when we thought maybe we could make it to a nearby streetcar but in the short time it took us to get down to the lobby the downpour intensified and the street was awash in rainwater when we got to the door.

It was still raining at noon but not as heavily as before, and we were so antsy by then that we didn’t mind the idea of getting a little wet, so we went down to the street and splashed a couple blocks to catch the streetcar, which we rode to the city market. The clouds were breaking up by the time we got there and though they tried feebly to spit a few last drops of rain at us, we had a pretty nice afternoon to explore the city.