Evening sashlik:Two of us go to Chumlyak for sashlik for dinner for a change. This is a day I rode to work, as the morning was beautiful. In the late afternoon some thundershowers came up. I delayed riding home, hoping to miss the rain, but it didn't stop so quickly. I went ahead and rode, getting wet. I had expected it to be cold. Standing outside in the damp of the light rain, and with the wind, it felt cold. As I rode I quickly found it was not. I suffered from cold not at all. The heat I generated was quite sufficient, and the rain helped to keep me cool. As I reached the camp, the rain was slowing to a stop. Within another quarter of an hour, the sun began to appear from behind the clouds. We decided to go to the village to eat. Walking out the evening was beautiful. The sun was shining brightly and dramatically from between banks of black clouds. A massive and brilliant rainbow glowed for a time, eventually fading as the sun moved. Another rainbow appeared, farther away, fainter, fading more quickly. The air smells clean, with the bright and light odor of the north woods.
In town, one could feel that they were in a Mediterranean village. The flowering trees are blooming, and the town is actually beautiful. From outside the cafe one can see across a field to the woods, and it looks clean. Not the usual condition for the village cafe! From inside I can see the roofs of the adjacent houses. Birds are flying overhead through a brilliantly colorful sky full of clouds and blue sky both. It is the clarity of the air, and the fresh cleanliness of everything else, making the colors so fresh and glowing that one thinks of photographs of romantically picturesque Italian villages.
