"Wow, it's really chucking it down out there, isn't it?"

Birthday gift art for RenTradewind (@ Twitter).

A lot of it, such as the reflection on the truck body and the water effects on the windscreen, were experimental.

Edit 2020-11-10 T 09:50 Z: Here's a story I just finished writing, to go along with this picture.

Thunder crackled in the distance, and a light rain pockmarked the windshield as Andreas drove his truck through the old truss bridge over the B.A. Steinhagen Reservoir in the mid-morning light. Despite the rain, the reservoir had a fine layer of morning fog gently sleeping on the water's surface, partially overlapping the bridge itself. The temperature had dropped quite a bit in the previous days, a sure sign that autumn was quickly approaching, and the oncoming storm was one of many fronts that would drop the temperature further as the week progressed. Not that Andreas minded - despite everything, he liked the rain, and his heated jacket still worked after all these years of use and abuse.

Finally, after a couple minutes of disturbing the sleeping fog over the causeway, Andreas saw the road signs on the other side reflecting back his headlights. The state park he worked at was just ahead on one of the side roads, the trees looming overhead providing the truck shelter against the rain. Despite the weather, the park was always beautiful this time of year, the trees overhead turning various hues of red and yellow and brown, with some of the pines remaining green throughout the year.

As he stepped into the headquarters building and walked to his locker, he jumped as a nearby clap of thunder rattled the windows and shook the cages on the building's fluorescent light fixtures. Right after he'd changed into his uniform, he heard the headquarters door open. He set the collar pins down on the shelf in his locker and ran to man the desk.

"Christ, it's cold out there. I don't know how you can stand it,"Geoff, his supervisor, remarked as he walked in and saw Andreas.

"I've got a heated jacket. I'm cold-blooded, remember?" Andreas responded, as he walked back to the locker area. He signed his name on the binder in the back and made his way over to the vehicle keybox. "Which truck you have me in today?" He asked, as he dialled in the combination.

He pulled the knob open and glanced inside as Geoff responded. "They're all out," he explained as Andreas stared into an empty keybox, "We've had a few trees fall up in the Walnut Ridge unit last night, it's closed until we can get it cleaned up. Mike says there's still a couple of RVs out there, but they're fine where they are. Everyone else has already gone home for the week."

Andreas closed the keybox and scrambled the dials. "So where do you want me?"

The desk bell rang as Geoff responded. "Make a loop through Hen House Ridge, see if there's any major damage. Call me after, we'll take it from there. Hello--? Oh, hey, what's up..."

Andreas yanked his radio off the charger and put it on his belt. He then grabbed his heated jacket off the locker door and closed it. With a deep breath and a sigh, he walked back around the front of the desk. "Alright, Geoff. Guess I'd--"

Andreas was interrupted by a white-and-blue streak flying across the desk. He flinched as he felt something hit his arm. He heard Geoff chuckle and looked down at his arm, straight into the eyes of a white-and-blue reptile clinging to his arm staring straight back at him. The reptile seemed to be grinning mischievously.

The strange white-and-blue reptile had shown up around the boat ramp in the southeastern corner of the park a few weeks prior, sick. Andreas had to do a lot of research to figure out what the creature was, and even more research trying to figure out what was wrong with it - in the end, it had a simple sickness caused by one of the invasive species in the water. He'd cared for the little water dragon for a while before he released it back into the wild, and every now-and-then it'd turn up back at the park headquarters, waiting for him. It was a very intelligent species for its size, and was capable of writing to communicate with him. It even knew Andreas' rough schedule. When Andreas asked the creature for its name, it spelled out "REN" before the mechanical pencil lead it was writing with broke.

The little dragon scampered up Andreas' jacket sleeve and perched up on his shoulder, laying its head against Andreas' jacket collar. "Guess I have a little helper today," Andreas commented. Geoff just chuckled, and Andreas walked back out to his truck, getting in. As he settled into the cab, the little dragon hopped onto the dashboard, circled an area above his tachometer a couple of times, and lay down, looking out the window. Andreas chuckled and drove into the park proper, beginning his search for damage.

As he drove out into the clearing afforded by the southern loop, the storm front began to roll in. Rain began to pelt the windshield with inch-wide drops. More thunder rumbled, and Andreas was almost certain he saw lightning strike out in the middle of the lake. The wind rolled in, and by the time Andreas got to the day-use area, he'd had to turn the wipers on high - it was difficult to see more than 200 feet in front of him - and the windshield fogging up wasn't helping matters much, either. Thankfully, the speed limit in this area of the park was barely above his truck's idling speed, Andreas thought to himself as he reached over and turned on the defroster. "Wow, it's really chucking it down out there, isn't it?" he remarked, admiring the weather outside.

It seemed that the water dragon was also admiring the weather - the next he glanced down, the little water dragon had sat up slightly, put its hands to the windshield, and was watching the rain through the glass in childlike wonder. A couple of trails of condensation began to appear where its hands were blocking the defrost vents' path. Andreas could have even sworn he saw the creature smiling.

"Not that I'm complaining, hell, we need it," he added, as he continued scanning the park for storm damage.