Bits and Pieces - Dancing Between the Raindrops

 

Friday night of last week, a heavy rainstorm blessed this area, leaving a bit over three inches of liquid sunshine.  Saturday morning's skies were overcast, with more thunderstorms and potentially heavy rain in the forecast for most parts of the state.

Not so good.  

Saturday, May 21, was the date scheduled for the formal exchange of wedding vows for my son's youngest daughter and her husband.  They were legally married over a year ago by a Justice of the Peace and live in a very small town in northwest Arkansas; she drives almost daily into Fayetteville where she attends the University of Arkansas.  It had been her dream to get married at Thorncrown Chapel, just outside Eureka Springs, AR, and Saturday was the date set for this event. 

I had long ago made plans to attend this event, but it didn't look like the weather was going to cooperate.  Eureka Springs is 190 miles northwest of my home, a three and a half-hour drive over good roads that wind up and down and all around the hills that make northwest Arkansas so beautiful.  Although the roads are good, if they are wet, I'd just as soon be driving somewhere else.  What to do?  Go, of course, wet roads or no wet roads; she's my granddaughter.

Eldest daughter, her mother-in-law and I left here at 10:00 a.m. under heavily overcast skies to make the drive for the 4:30 wedding.  By the time we were 40 miles away, the sun was shining with hardly a cloud in the sky.  The countryside was beautiful, with nary a trace of dust on the trees and grasses, their having been washed thoroughly by the previous evening's rain.  The wildflowers along the side of the road were blooming in profusion. I was driving, or I would have had some photos.

We arrived at Thorncrown Chapel about an hour before the wedding was to begin, so we had time to wander around a bit in the still wonderful sunshine.  Those three umbrellas and a raincoat in my car stayed unused.

Exterior, Thorncrown Chapel

 Interior, Thorncrown Chapel

The ceremony was well attended by family and close friends and followed by a reception at their church in their hometown, a bit over a 30 minute drive southeast of Eureka Springs.  Those folk who didn't make the wedding were there for the reception; an almost full house.

We left the reception just after 6:30, headed east on U.S. Highway 412 (not my favorite road number for this reason) across the top of Arkansas, through some more beautiful country to intersect with U.S. Highway 65 which would lead us back into central Arkansas and home.

We got home just before 11 p.m., just ahead of another batch of thunderstorms which left another half-inch of rain. 

Life is good!

Tomorrow is also a day.