My father in law often said, “It is a good thing we have weather. Otherwise we wouldn’t have anything to talk about.” I’m pretty sure that there are many other things to talk about, but I am a bit surprised about how often I write about weather in my journal. I’m not sure that this is a cause of concern, but I know that sorting through my great-grandfather’s journals requires a great deal of reading through boring writing to find the few gems that are important recordings of history. He was a court reporter and trained in accurately recording testimony. Therefore his journal entries that record sermons by a pioneering Methodist Circuit Rider are of interest to the Montana Methodist Historical Archives. Similarly, his recording of the various moves of the Montana State Capitol in the early politically charged days of the territory on its way to becoming a state are of interest to the Montana Historical Society. However, getting to those bits of important information involves reading through pages and pages in which little is recorded except the weather. Perhaps there is some weather historian out there to whom those journals might hold more interest, but to me, it is a real chore to read them.

I don’t particularly want to leave behind a similar legacy. On the other hand, I’m not sure that I’m leaving behind any kind of a legacy. Although my journals are all collected into a digital archive and entries since 2007 are all available online right now, I suspect that the day will come when there is no interest in maintaining the web site and although our children know how to access the digital archive right now, there is no real evidence that what I have written is of much long-lasting impact. At any rate, what I will leave behind is less physical volume than the boxes and boxes of paper journals from my forebears that have ended up in storage and wait for me to sort, digitize, and process. I hope to leave a bit less work for those who come after me.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about the weather a bit lately. The visit of our daughter and grandson is a precious short treat this summer and we don’t want to lose any time in pursuing adventures with them. Consequently we have quite a list of activities from which we can chose depending on the weather. If possible, we’d like to save adventures like visiting beaches and driving into the mountains to play in the snow for days when the weather is warm and nice and reserve indoor activities like bowling and the children’s museum for days when it is rainy. So far, we don’t have a very good track record on that score. Yesterday we headed to the beach even though the day was a bit gray in the morning because the grandkids were raring to go to the beach after hearing us discuss it as a possibility the day before. Then, since it was gray and a bit chilly at the beach, we decided to go bowling in the afternoon, which proved to be sunny and very warm.

So I’ve been consulting the weather apps on my phone a bit more often than usual to help guide our decisions. I suspect that it isn’t much of a problem because we seem to have the ability to have a really good time no matter which activity we choose. I’m still giggling about the reaction of our 13-year-old grandson when his grandmother put her hand on the back of her neck after holding an icy beverage. It gave us all a good laugh as we sat in an ice cream store after a fun afternoon of bowling. Whatever the activity, we seem to find a lot of opportunities to laugh and enjoy each other. And whatever the weather we seem to find ourselves in one of the may excellent ice cream vendors in our area. I still have a long list of ice cream places we could visit in the days to come. And I’m pretty sure that the grandchildren won’t complain if we end up repeating one of them.

Looking ahead at the weather, chances of ice cream remain very strong in the days to come as we enjoy the visit and the time with all of our grandchildren together. We certainly get good treatment as our gang lines up at an ice cream counter, and I appreciate the knowing smiles from other grandparents who are having adventures with their grandchildren.

I’ve had my attention on a map from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Climate Prediction Center that depicts almost all of the united States with temperatures above average for this time of the year. Only a bit of southern Texas and Hawaii are predicted to have normal temperatures. All of Alaska is showing below normal temperatures for this time of the year and all of the rest of the states are pictures in red and orange with a few bits of yellow around the Great Lakes and in central Texas.

The forecasters are predicting our first extended heat wave in Western Washington for later this week, with temperatures predicted to climb into the lower 80s and possibly the 90s. Temperatures like that could force us indoors to escape the heat, something that has been mercifully rare so far this summer around here. Of course there are movie theaters and ice cream parlors on the list of options for hot days. And we are lucky to have air conditioning in our home powered by solar panels so our utility costs don’t go up when we turn on the AC. When all of the grandchildren are here, we’re grateful for the outdoor space that gives extra room for active children. All of us indoors with the doors and windows shut tends to get a bit loud. Our son’s place down the road has a large outbuilding with lots of play possibilities for children that has heat pumps to cool the air. Both we and our son have plenty of freezer space so we can store extra ice cream if necessary.

Other weather watchers have their eyes on the weather maps with concerns about potential for increased wildfire danger, especially with too many people being careless with July 4 fireworks. At our household, we’re watching the weather maps with a bit different set of concerns.

Don’t worry about us, however, we’ve got enough savings set aside for the week to come to allow for additional ice cream in the grocery budget as necessary.