Montana Dog Park: When it rains, it’s a full-out assault

We decide to visit our favorite Montana dog park, Jacob's Island in Missoula, because our Jacob loves to splash around in a babbling brook we found there.

He's our water dog. We like to let him play in water when we can.

We park in a lot we're told is a mile away from Jacob’s Island and start our hike. Which takes forever.

So it's not a mile. It's maybe two. In the meantime, gray clouds mottle the Big Sky and the wind kicks up and the rain begins. Well, it's not quite rain, it’s more like a mist, so we continue on. Jacob has earned his romp in the brook.

By the time we arrive at the dog park, it's raining harder, well, more like sprinkling this time, but the brook's just around the bend, so we go a bit faster. And so does the rain, which is now an insistent sprinkling.

Finally, around the bend we see NO BROOK! Jacob scrambles out over the stones. Then stops. What, no water? Maybe not out there, but over-head the sprinkling's given way to rain, a steady rain, so we relent. We head back to the motor home. About two miles away.

Those swirling gray clouds darken and light dances on the horizon.  Lightening! One thousand one. One thousand two. One thousand three. And thunder. 

We quicken our pace and so does the rain, which is now coming down as globlets. Fat, plunky globlets. Crackle flash! One thousand one. Thunder. The lightening is getting closer and the thunder ponderous. Then, CRACKLE SNAP SZZST! Thunder. No counting. It’s here. Lightening arcs over the power lines right over our heads and snaps into the hillside. 

And what this?? HAIL??!! You've got to be kidding me.

The dogs zig-zag with their heads down, trying to dodge the icy scattershot. I look up and see the hail pinging off Allen's head. Ping. Ping. I laugh. And am paid back with pain as the B-B sized hail stings my shoulder and neck. 

And it is cold. 

So we're scrambling with a mile to go in a hail/lightening/thunder/rain storm. What, no snow?

We're nearly there now. We can see motor home. Our warm, dry motor home.

Impossibly, we quicken our step then SPLISH SPLASH! We plow into a FLOOD right in the parking lot.

The water's so deep, it covers our ankles. We slog through.

And Jacob? He's having the time of his life. We promised him a brook. So now he plays. And we let him.

Because, well, it's what we came for.