Chinitna Bay Rain

by · Posted in: lake clark journal

The weather showed her complete repertoire today. The day began with a slight breeze and high, bright overcast. Around 10:30 the wind kicked up to about 40 knots and the bay filled with white caps. By 11:00 it was raining—at times hard and the temperature dropped from 62 to 45 degrees. The rain stopped by 5:00 pm and at 5:30 the sun came out and the wind stopped. It is now mostly sunny with a few scatted clouds. I spent most of the day in the cabin. The cabin has a pull-up bar, which I tried for a while—a short-lived activity that would have inspired tears of pity in a schoolgirl. It was a good opportunity to think about Pascal’s little comment from Pensees: “The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.” By the end of the day (spent quietly in this room, by the way) I determined that the cause of Pascal’s unhappiness was that he thought the sole cause of anything could be reduced to a pithy little sentence.