Perhaps I should have called it chasing the sun

because that's what this trip has been all about.

It started to pour on my way to Saratoga Springs from New York City, and I've been racing precipitation as I've moved west.

It poured my entire drive from Saratoga to Niagara Falls (Canada).

The sun broke free in the morning in time for me to see the falls but retreated as I drove through Ontario wine country.  While I loved the rolling hills of Ontario's green corridor and its vineyards, I did not like the showers that followed me.  By the time I arrived in Toronto that evening, the weather that accompanied me was a veritable downpour.  It rained on and off the entire time I was in Toronto.

It was unseasonably cold when I left Toronto, and by the time I approached the border, it was snowing.  It was pouring by the time I bunked down in Dearborn, MI.

It rained from Michigan to Ohio, and it was raining and gusting heavily when I arrived in Toledo, OH.

In Toledo, I thought I had broken free of my precipitatious hitchhiker -- the sun always made an appearance in the morning -- but my overcast nemesis always showed itself by late afternoon.  By then, I had come to expect it.

I was not surprised when it rained from Ohio to Indiana.  Nor was I surprised when it rained the entire day and night I spent in Indiana.  Or, that it rained my entire way through Illinois.

By the time I reached Wisconsin, I was going to rename the Gray Beast to Gloomy Gus to more accurately represent her rain cloud attracting qualities.  So, it stopped raining, and it snowed.  The temperature began to drop rapidly, and it sleeted.  My particular area of Wisconsin had been affected by an unseasonably early cold front, so instead of typical 39-59 temperatures, it never got warmer than 45 my entire time there.

I was not particularly shocked when it rained, sleeted and froze from Wisconsin through Minnesota to South Dakota.  It froze and rained in Mitchell, SD.  It froze and rained in Wall, SD.  It rained in Deadwood, SD.

I've been in Hill City, SD going on two nights now, and while it's rained on and off (with small rain clouds that seem to only hover over my immediate vicinity because I can see the sun wherever I'm not), the temperatures have started to return to their October averages, which should range somewhere between 39-60, not the 30-42 its been this week.

I head for Colorado tomorrow, and I feel optimistic.  Perhaps the Gray Beast should keep her name after all.