It's raining.........Bugs!

It's hot and humid in DC on any August day- but we went on a cool day- only 85 degrees and humid enough to feel like you'd never completely dried from your shower. After dragging ourselves from the Capitol building to the National Archives to the White House we were tired and hot. We went to the National Mall and found a quiet, grassy place under a shade tree and quickly fell asleep (We'd taken the red-eye and our only sleep that night had been on the plane, need I say more). When were awakened by a low grumble and found that the weather had changed. The grumble was thunder. The sunny skies were gone, replaced by low, gray clouds. When we started seeing the lightening we decided it was time to move.
We were right next to the World War II memorial. In that part of The Mall there are no buildings. Our only hope of shelter was to walk the 6 city blocks to the Lincoln Memorial- We didn't make it.
The thunder roared and the torrents began.
At first we dashed from the protection of one tree to the next, which worked for a little while. When we got close enough to really see the memorial we realized that they were repairing the stairs and we would have had to make a long dash, unprotected, across the width of The Mall and the length of the stairs, with lightening bolts near and bathtubs of cool water falling from the clouds.
By this time the protection of the trees was no match for the volume of the buckets of water washing down on them. We were soaked through every layer of clothing- and to make matters more comical, we were carrying all of our possessions because we hadn't checked into our hotel yet. Everything we had was soaked through.
It was at this point that we realized that the torrent was not only washing us but the trees as well. It was washing the bugs out of the trees. There we stood, dripping water from every appendage and covered in newly cleaned bugs.
It was a completely miserable experience and we stood under that tree for 30 minutes, waiting for the rain to stop- drenched, covered in bugs, and laughing hysterically- delighted to be together creating a family moment we'll never forget.