Splendor in the Rain

I had just finished a lovely lunch that featured delicious steak fajitas and some much-needed catch-up time with a dear girlfriend. It was raining, still, and I had my umbrella over my head. As I walked back to my car, I noticed some odd coloring on the glass of a car parked not far from mine. It seemed . . . orange.

But then I came closer, and I saw the raindrops on the glass, and the drops seemed to be shimmering in all kinds of colors: pink, orange, yellow, and red. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. But I knew I HAD to have some pictures. Yes, it was pure magic, even in the rain.

So I unlocked my own car and tossed my stuff in, then came back with my camera and my umbrella, and took a bunch of photos. There was a small tree close to the car and I found I could capture its reflection on the glass, along with all of those colorful droplets. (Yes, tree reflections seems to be my thing these days!)

And as I stood there, a single droplet ran down the glass, merging with other droplets, becoming bigger, and rolling down, down, down. And as it ran, it CHANGED COLORS. One second it was red, then orange, then yellow. I thought I must be losing my mind!

Above you may see a big-picture photo of the droplets on what is apparently called (and with good reason!) rainbow glass. In the extras, you may see a close-up of all of those glorious individual drops. WOW! How can one person HAVE so much fun!??

Of course, when I got back to my computer, I looked it up, and it turns out that the car is a Tesla. The special glass is designed to reflect certain wavelengths of light, including UV and others, to reflect the sun's heat away from the car's interior. This is meant to be an energy-saving feature.

I found a 30-second video that shows what it is like to walk around such a car when there are raindrops on it, and I find that this video most captures the experience of wonder that I had. No, I could never own such a car (even if I could afford it); I'd do nothing but stand around all day photographing those crazy droplets in the rain!

The song to accompany these unusual and fun images of discovered accidental, pure magic in the rain is Peter Gabriel with a live and fabulous performance of Red Rain.