(In no particular order)

1. Lightening storm while riding a freight train crossing the Mississippi. I had thought it really couldn't get any better than seeing the Mississippi at night surrounded by tons of moving metal when a lightening storm appeared and lasted for hours.

2. Laying in a tent in the rain with a new lover in the woods in Pennsylvania.

3. Brutally hard rainstorm in Ohio on a summer day. It appeared out of nowhere as I left a bookstore. I wrapped my books in three bags and put them inside my shirt. By the time I was halfway home it was raining so hard I could hardly see in front of me.

4. Sitting in a car on the coast of FLA on a family trip as the very edge a hurricane hit the beach. One of my earliest memories. We were in a station wagon and the adults - who had been drinking on the beach 20 minutes earlier - were all arguing. The dumb Ohioans didn't believe the weatherman. The car rocked in the wind as the kids cried.

5. NYC shut down by a blizzard. From my second story window at 2nd and 2nd you could see an endless line of dump trucks taking snow to dump in the east river. The only other traffic was a lone cat plow clearing the sidewalk across the street.

- Melinda Fries