Rainfest 2006

The weather this past Friday and Saturday were terrible. There was rain, hail and cold temperatures. I was lucky to be photographing out in the elements Friday night and Saturday morning.

Friday night I drove to Dearborn High School to photograph Dearborn vs Adrian in a pre-district football game. The football field was in terrible condition due to the rain. It was raining pretty hard, that made difficult to take notes. The rain was washing most of my notes away. The rain and gel ink pens don't mix. I was wearing a long raincoat down to my calves. That didn't stop me from getting wet. The rain and mud found my pant legs. My jeans were wet all the way up to my knees. Mud even got inside of my pant legs. The raincoat sleeves aren't as long as the sleeves on my winter coat. The rain soaked my sleeves and ran down my arm inside my coat. I was very excited to walk back to my car at halftime and drive back to Adrian.

Saturday morning I drove to Jackson to photograph the Division 3 and 4 Regional Cross Country meet at Ella Sharp Park. I was prepared I wrapped my camera in plastic. I had one two coats, my raincoat and a hat. Before the meet began I bought cookies at the concession stand. I was thinking that it was getting hot and that I should go back to my car and take off some of my coats. I started walking to my car and the skies opened up. First it started raining. Then the hail came. I was standing in the middle of the cross country course. The only shelter was some trees and a bush. I stood in the rain/combo, then about 5 minutes into it, I stood under a tall bush. About 10 minutes before the start of the Division 3 boys race the hail and rain stopped. This made the course very muddy. My boots were covered in mud and so were my jeans. A replay of the night before, wet and muddy jeans.

Sunday morning I did laundry. It took 3 washes to get most of the mud out from the inside of my pantlegs. Three washes. My washer sucks.