Thwarted by the weather (again)

As today was my day off from work, CLH and I scheduled a number of events in Denver for the day.

First, we drove down for the 10:45 service at a Lutheran church in a suburb of Denver, which has an opening for a part-time Director of Music for the fall. The church is currently without a pastor for the summer, and the substitute pastor was.... not great. And through no choosing of my own, I ended up with wine instead of grape juice for communion. Yuck. Other than that, the church was nice.

Next, we headed over to a nearby Target to do some quick shopping. After that, we went to Panda Express for lunch. Luckily, we happened to get there about 5 minutes before a huge group of people from a nearby church that was having a fundraiser at the restaurant.

The first inkling that the remainder of our day might not go as planned came at 1 pm, when we felt a few sprinkles as we walked to our car in the Panda Express parking lot. It was only a very light rain, and the sun was still shining, so we were optimistic.

The weather was looking pretty good when we arrived at nearby Water World, reportedly "America's Biggest" and "America's Best" water park. (Note: I thought that Noah's Ark was the biggest water park in America, but according to their website they are actually "America's Largest" water park, and only "one" of America's best water parks. Good to know.)

At 2 pm, we bought tickets for a half-day admission at Water World from 2-6 pm.

By 2:15, we were changed out of church clothes and into swimsuits, properly lathered with SPF 45 sunscreen, and floating down the Lazy River, allowing our lunch to finish digesting.

By 2:20 pm, it was pouring rain, lightning was flashing in the distance, everybody was kicked off all of the rides, and we went to huddle with the other miserable water park visitors in one of the shelters.

By 2:30 pm, there was a significant layer of pea-sized hail on the ground.

By 3:15 pm, the rain had not stopped, although the hail had come and gone several times. An announcement came over the loudspeaker that the park was closing for the rest of the afternoon and we could pick up rain check tickets at the gate.

By 3:30 pm, we were back in the car heading home, still in our swimsuits and towels since our clothes had gotten wet in the locker during the rain.

But to look at things with a positive spin: We have tickets to go back to Water World any day that we want, before September. (Albeit, we'll be out of the state from June 29 to August 20 or so.) We're home much earlier than anticipated, allowing time to finish the laundry and get some other miscellaneous stuff done. We got what we needed from Target and we had an enjoyable lunch!

In other news, I am 3/7 of the way through my "work marathon." I worked this past Friday and Saturday from 9:00-7:30 (yesterday being the first Saturday that the hospital was open until 7 pm, although I stayed until 8 pm because things were totally hectic). Today, Sunday, was my day off. This next week, I'll be working Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, from 9:00-7:30 each day. You can do the math and figure out how many hours of working that is in a 7 day period. It's a wee bit depressing.

The work marathon is due to an extremely unfortunate misunderstanding in the work schedule. At the end of May, I asked the scheduler if it would be possible for me to have three consecutive days off so that CLH and I could go camping, and told her it would need to be during the first two weeks of June and if she couldn't arrange it for those weeks, then don't worry about it. Well, I didn't get the three days during those two weeks, and that was fine. But then this past week they put up the schedule for next week and the week after (my last two weeks of work). Apparently the scheduler, with good intentions, had remembered that I wanted several days off in a row, but had forgotten that they needed to be during the first two weeks of the month. Thus, I am working Mon/Tues/Wed/Thurs this week, then have Fri/Sat/Sun/Mon off, then am working 4 days between Tuesday and Saturday the following week. Okay, that's fine, except that the Fri/Sat/Sun/Mon I have as a four-day weekend are four of the five days when CLH will be in Arizona. Sigh. But I've got plenty of things to get done in that time, and I've no doubt I'll be able to stay busy with all my errands and to-do list that has to be finished before we leave for Massachusetts.

So anyway, wish me luck with the upcoming 4 day / 42 hour work marathon extravaganza, and don't be surprised if I seem to disappear from the face of the earth until at least Friday or Saturday! (I've already made my plans for Friday: sleeping until 2 pm, then driving to FoCo to give a tour of the teaching hospital at 4 pm, then coming home for a delicious send-off dinner, prepared by CLH, then driving CLH to the Denver airport for his flight leaving at 9:30 pm. That is the sum total of my ambitions for Friday.)