Rainbows

We left Myrtle Beach late yesterday afternoon.  It was 84 degrees and sunny, but as we approached the I-95 corridor the sky was looking stormy due to the line of thunderstorms crossing the Carolinas from west to east.  By the time we'd been on I-95 for 30 minutes or so, we were smack in the middle of the storms, my husband driving precariously through intermittent bands of heavy, windshield spattering rain as I desperately fiddled with the defrost mode to find the right setting that would allow a clear view of the road ahead.  The temperature reading on our dash was dropping quickly, first 75 degrees, then 70, then 64.

At some point, as we marveled at the beautiful sunshine to our left, the ominous deep gray sky in front, and the stormy mottled sky to our right, my husband remarked that he hadn't found the rainbow yet, for surely there would be one.

And shortly after, sure enough, it came in the form of a brilliant double bow, one whose clarity and depth of color I have never witnessed before.  The arc stretched out before us on the right and we were able to see the full bow, end to end, for many miles as we traveled.  I tried to snap some pictures, but the quality of color was lost.  It was something that had to be seen in person.

It was a lovely moment in a very stressful drive, in a very stressful and busy time in our lives, after a weeklong vacation that fit the description dubiously at best.  Rainbows always seem to portend good things, a purging of sorts of all bad thoughts and worries.

As the remnants of a long, hot, ho-hum summer pass on by us, I hope this rainbow does, indeed, mean good things.