Diane and I took the motorhome out for a weekend in Sedona on August 24.

When we first arrived at the Rancho Sedona RV Park, I got out of the vehicle and put my fingers into my ears. The cicadas making the buzzing sound in the trees were almost too much to put up with.

But, I came to overlook that with the setting, which was green and beautiful. Diane couldn’t wait to put her chair in the creek, and lose track of time sitting and reading and having her feet in the water. The creek was running clear at that time.

Saturday was mostly sunny and the temperature was in the low 80s. That was perfect for setting up the campsite.

For dinner that night I put a couple of steaks on the grill, Diane made a big salad and we had ice cream for dessert. Add to that a glass of wine and it was like the perfect meal.

Sunday morning, I awoke at 5 a.m. to the sound of raindrops hitting the metal top of our RV. It opened up to a heavy rain that fell until almost 11 a.m.

In fact it lasted so long that I became concerned about the creek rising. When the rain let up, I went over to the top of the berm that they have built to protect the campgrounds from flooding. It was a different sight from just 24 hours earlier.

The clear water from the day before was now flowing swiftly, colored a bright red.

There were a few more light showers later in the day and that night. It cooled off the air but it was quite humid.

The second night I put some salmon burgers on the grill. We’ve started having those instead of ground beef patties for our burgers, especially because we had steak the night before.

We came back on Monday.

Tuesday through Thursday were days reminiscent of monsoon seasons of days gone by. We had rain on at least a portion of town all three days.

Three different storm clouds passed over on Tuesday and dumped about a half inch of rain at our office. Another half inch of rain fell on Wednesday afternoon.

I and most of my employees got rain at our homes in a brief downpour Thursday at about 5:30 p.m., but we only had a trace at the office.

On Friday, the sky to the southeast looked extremely threatening around 5:30 p.m. You could see a big downdraft of rain and wind contrasted by the nearly black, dense clouds around it.

It never moved in. I was disappointed until I saw the news that night. The storm did major damage in Apache Junction including the downing of 24 power poles along the Apache Trail through the downtown. There was also extensive street flooding caused by 1.73 inches of rain falling in just 45 minutes.

As much as I like watching the lightning from those intense storms, I‘d rather watch them from a distance than have all the damage.

Well the monsoon season lasts until Sept. 30 so we have a little less than a month for them to occur.

My main wish for the rest of the month is to see good weather on Sept. 12 to 15 when the National Newspaper Association Convention is held at the Arizona Grand Resort in Phoenix.

I’m hoping for a “cool” 95 degrees for the high and low humidity.