Stormy Weather - (Palo Duro Canyon, TX)

Linda slept in until 9:30.  She's gettin' into a real morning sleeping groove, and she would probably sleep longer if it wasn't for Crazy Chuck banging into the windows starting at daylight.  :)

By the time she has her coffee, reads the Journal, and a few blogs, it's lunchtime.  :)

One thing we both quickly noticed this morning was humidity in the air.  And Linda thought that was a wonderful thing.

She said she was tired of the dry skin, the static electricity, and getting shocked every time we moved for the last few months.  :)

Since we didn't have any plans today and we are supposed to move tomorrow, we decided to do laundry in Canyon.  It took a few phone calls, but we finally got directions to the nearest laundromat.

And once again, our weird laundry phenomenon continued.

You see, I often drop Linda off and go do other errands.  But on those occasions when I don't, I find something to read and sit out of the way.

Every time I stay with her, and I mean every time, the female laundry attendants strike up a conversation with me.  They don't talk to Linda, the more social one, or anyone else in the laundromat.  They come find me in my little corner and start talking to me.  And it happened again today ... while Linda laughed in the background.  What is up with that?  :)

While at the laundromat, we heard national weather bulletins on the radio.  Of course we didn't recognize any of the towns or counties, so we didn't know if we were in the path of the storms or not.

We went on to Wal-mart where I thought we were picking up some milk and cheese.  Sixty dollars later, we're putting our five canvas grocery bags full of stuff in the Jeep.

Honey, we're just going to Oklahoma, not Siberia.  I'm pretty sure we will be able to find some food.  :)

Back home, to appease "The Worrier", I checked the weather online.  Those weather warnings we heard on the radio were for well north of us and north of Amarillo.  BUT, there is one little storm pocket south of us that could get here later.

And it did.  The sky started looking pretty rough and the winds picked up.

I checked the weather again and there was no doubt we were in the path.  And now there was a tornado watch for the entire Texas panhandle.  Oh, I just couldn't tell her that part - she was already freaking out.  :)

She started moving furniture getting prepared to bring all the slides in.  A quick lightning strike and the power in the campground went off.  So we turned on the inverter and stowed our satellite dish to protect it from high winds and hail.

I went outside, put our loungers in the truck, put the grill away, and threw everything else that might blow away in the basement.  I came back inside to find all the slides in.  Could we at least wait until it starts raining?  :)

The winds blew and there was lighting all around the canyon rim, but we got very little rain and, thankfully, no hail.  After about 30 minutes it was pretty much over, and I was outside with the camera taking pictures in the weird lighting.

The faint rainbow over the rig on the right lasted for quite some time.  At one point it became a full arc.  I got most of it in this next shot.

The other end of it was over our little picnic table patio.

The sky looked completely different across the street.

And there were actually people (tiny little dots) out on the rocks on the canyon rim as the storm passed through.

But you can see the sky clearing behind the clouds.  Soon, everyone was milling around outside again and our slides were back out.  Linda was happy - "We survived!"

As we stood outside, Linda noticed a critter in the grass beside the truck.  I walked over to find a pack rat.  He quickly scrambled through one of the holes in our truck wheel.

I never could get a picture, but he would stick his head out of the hole and then get startled.  Soon his head was popping out of different wheel holes.  It was like a live version of that "Whack-a-mole" carnival game.  :)

After awhile, the electricity came back on.  But right after we sent the dish back up, got online, and got the TV going, the power went out again.

We didn't think it was going to come back on this time.  So we turned on the inverter and let the batteries carry us through the night.

Since it was pretty warm and we couldn't run the air conditioner and didn't want to run the generator, we kept the inverter on and let a little fan run in the bedroom all night long.  Of course we checked to see how many amps we were using with the inverter and fan on to be sure we wouldn't drain the batteries too far by morning.

And if the shore power happened to come back on in the middle of the night, everything would automatically transfer to shore power.  Our inverter/charger would stop inverting and start re-charging the batteries.

If the power doesn't come back on, we should get plenty of sunshine to re-charge with the solar panels tomorrow.  And we could use the generator if necessary.

And so that was our day.

We made it through the storm and had a nice evening here .... somewhere over the rainbow.  :)

Comments

[Charles Henry]

Linda,

Have you checked Howard for any temporaty tatoos that say "I am available at laundrymats"?

Charles

[Darby Corwin]

Howard one time a couple of years ago we stopped at the COE campground at Lake Seminole in the Panhandle. We had a beautiful site right on the edge of the lake. Around 7PM I noticed that there were some very black clouds coming towards us from across the lake. I hurried and put my patio awning away but thought the window awnings would be OK. Well that storm hit and to tell you the truth I was scared, I put in the slide out and my wife and the dog set in the middle of the MH on the floor. The wind was so bad it was shaking the MH. I beleive if we weren't parked so the rear of the MH was toward the storm instead of the side that it would have turned us over. The wind was shaking the window awnings and they were making a lot of noise but they held. The water was so bad that it blew into the Refrig. vent and put the refrig out. The Power went out and was out well into the night. The next morning we drove around a l bit and there were trees down every where. I guess the Campground host had went to every RV and told the people to go to the bath house, but they failed to tell us. I am like Linda now I respect those storms.

[CowgirlCreations]

I'm curious as to why you put the slides in during the storm...please enlighten me. And watch out for those packrats!! They can and will do massive harm to the wiring in your truck...put some fabric dryer sheets or moth balls in there!!

[Gene S.]

You are a handsome man Howard, is it that difficult to figure out why woman want to seek you out? Linda probably already knows that but is keeping it from you. :):)

[Jeanie Hoyle]

Hi Howard and Linda,

We just started our NEW website and thought you might want to check it out. Notice the LINK to RV-DREAMS on the Blog page lower left corner. Please visit, the site and make any comments about it you may have.

Site http://web.mac.com/jandjhoyle

By the way working with us here at Deception Pass in WA are RV-Dreams members Tom and Ginny Reeber. They stopped and met you in Santa Ana, he is a GOLF NUT.
Jeanie and John

[Kathy]

Howard,

Check your truck thoroughly. That little bugger pack rat might be building a nest. They just love eating sparkplug wires!
Bruce says they love German food most - Mercedes RV's and VW Campers. While at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, the pack rats seemed to be drawn to those vehicles.

Regarding the laundromat
"phenomena" - I suppose you have a very pleasant, approachable demeanor. :)

Kathy

[Jo Wishnie]

Loved the blog today. It was laugh out loud funny. Glad you are safe.

Jo

[Ginger]

We are in site 120 and Crazy Chuck is still here, only now he is banging into our window. It's also very hot, you could have taken that with you.

See you soon!

[Fran]

Well, I was going to go back and fix a typo...not concerting, but concerning...was what I meant to type.

Anyway, the wind is a dangerous thing to trailers...

The weather, at times is a worrisome thing...so I think Linda is justified in being cautious...you don't live to an old age not being cautious!

Stay safe and happy travels...

Blessings,
Fran