Be careful! Somewhere over the rainbow could be a deadly lightning strike.

This one collage sums up this blog. The Rocky Mountains are rocked by thunderstorms and rain almost every day during the summer.

But we'll assume everyone likes to read, and start this blog in 1964 when Megan was 11 years of age.

To Megan's Mom, Tyne Tinkle, a vacation wasn't a vacation unless she went out West, and the Rocky Mountains had been vacationland since she had traveled there with her family as a small child. Megan's in the middle of this group, with her sister, Susan, on the right and cousin, Kip, on the left.

Megan has a detailed journal, that her mom wrote in first person as a 12-year-old child, about vacations to the Rocky Mountains.
For her children's benefit, Megan's mom wrote journals as a mother. We're going to share part of a page in the journal that started July 23, 1964.

If you read through the family's adventures, you'll see they saw a rainbow in the valley at Rainbow Curve at Rocky Mountain National Park. In Tyne's words:  (Two days later the pass was closed for a while because of a bad storm. A week later a woman was killed on the trail ridge drive by lightning.)

We found those ominous old journal entries Saturday night as we read about two people killed by lightning at the exact same spot - Rainbow Curve.
We bet that's a haunted place.
The woman killed Friday was 42 of Yellow Springs, Ohio, and the man killed Saturday had not been identified. The story by Reuters said: "The victims were struck by lightning at Rainbow Curve, where visitors often gather to watch for rainbows after rainstorms" on the 11,000-foot-high lookout trail.
That's what Megan's Mom wrote that they saw - a rainbow across the valley.
We didn't venture into Rocky Mountain National Park during our vacation. It wasn't on our agenda. But we drove through lots of Rocky Mountain storms and enjoyed our own rainbows.

We haven't even landed in Denver yet, on our flight from Branson, Missouri, and we're in a storm.

OK, we're obviously over the Rocky Mountains, why aren't we flying lower and lower to land?

They flew us around and around Denver - we probably passed over Colorado Springs three times - as we spent 30 minutes circling and circling. By the time we finally landed, Dwain's hands were sweaty and his face was blanched. There was definitely no rainbow in his face.

An hour later, we had our rental car, and Megan pointed her GPS toward Wyoming and that storm up ahead.

Rocky Mountain National Park is way over there, underneath the storm clouds on the horizon.

We've detoured off the Interstate in Loveland, Colorado. We didn't aim for Rocky Mountain National Park, but stopped at a Verizon store for the car charger we forgot. Not bad for us.

Uh, here's another inadvertent detour. Looks stormy ahead. The GPS was trying to route us off the Interstate onto a two-lane highway as it steered us into Wyoming.

Do you believe this still snow-covered mountain is creating its own weather? Probably.

Moon, talk about a super moon, there is nothing so bright as a moon over the high plains. It's out well before dusk. It's shining like the sun over storm clouds in the daytime.

We spent the second night in Cody, Wyoming. We were sitting at a street-side window in the Silver Dollar Bar when Megan spotted a rainbow and grabbed her phone. She had to climb up on a chair to get this image. The thing about being on vacation in a far-away spot, no one knows who you are. What do we care? Nice shot, girl.

We drove through rain at lower elevations, and fresh snow fell higher in the mountains. What a view! Light and dark, but we didn't see lightning.

Look at the storm in the distance. You can see storms building for miles ... maybe even in another state.

Now there's a phenomenon we don't see in Arkansas very often. Snow-covered mountain tops are sticking up through the storm clouds. I'm glad we're not up there.

 

This rainbow is in Riverton, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City. Hum, what do you see in this picture?

Here is the big picture - those big storm clouds are dropping fresh snow on the ski slopes in Park City; a Mormon temple towers over the homes and businesses on the right.

A storm just opened up, and light rain is falling over the high plains. As you can see, it's falling in one place, not on us. How strange!

More storm clouds. These are building over a expansive wind farm. How many wind mills can you count?

No, this isn't Rainbow Curve, and at least we didn't get struck by lightning. If you're going into the Rocky Mountains, be careful. Evidently lightning strikes are not uncommon, especially in particular places.

Naturally, storms delayed our departure out of Denver, Colorado, by an hour-and-a-half, but we didn't have to make a connecting flight. Then the pilot wouldn't allow any of the passengers to remove seatbelts on the entire flight to Branson.

Before the weekend's lightning deaths, the last lightning fatality that occurred in the park was in 2000, when a technical climber was struck on the Diamond on Longs Peak.


Megan and Dwain


Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high
There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby

Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true

Someday I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me.
Lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, 1939