In yesterday's blog I made mention of some significant winds. Well, those winds became much more than significant last night & for the past 24 hours we have been caught in a HUGE desert wind storm here. The wind gusts began to really hit us hard about 9 o'clock Thursday night & intensified with each hour. Couldn't get to sleep so around 11 I went out & dismantled our satellite dish & put it in the car. No easy feat when your trying to man handle a big 3.5 foot oval & scoop shaped piece of aluminum in high winds......in the dark......in your pajamas!!
The winds kept up all night & neither one of us got much sleep. Luckily we had the forethought to put away the tables & chairs earlier & I had taken down the flag pole. Daylight did not bring any relief like I had hoped it would. The winds just kept hammering us & rocking the motorhome. Sounded like it was going to blow the air conditioners off the roof. I had put down the television antennae in the middle of the night as well. A lot of dust & dirt blowing around too. We had a wind sock hanging in the Paloverde tree & the winds blew that out into the desert but we found it later in the day caught on a cactus.
As dawn broke & it began to get light out I had a look out the window at the other RV's parked not far from us to see what damage they may have received & was surprised that none of them had taken down their satellite dishes. One fellow even had all his patio furniture, bird feeders, & barbecue sitting out & they all had their slides out as well. You wouldn't even know there was a wind over there. There are only 3 possible & practical answers to this. They either had big plastic invisible domes over there rigs or they all had their satellite dishes welded to the ground & slides cemented to the sides of their units, or they are all religious people who got to-gether the night before, sent a few words upstairs & had the wind turned off on that side of the park!!
Didn't take the dogs for a walk this morning because we didn't want the fur blown right off them. By 10 o'clock it was obvious the winds were not going to abate so we jumped in the car & took a drive up to Ajo. Had a bite to eat, browsed around a bit & then took a road just west of Ajo out into the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) lands. We had been around that road last year & knew it to be a really scenic drive where a lot of people come with their RV's & camp for free in the desert. Scouted out some sites & explored some new side roads. There are a lot of BLM lands in this area & it's something we have been considering for quite awhile. It's a nice way to camp & be away from expensive RV parks. No electricity or water in the desert but we are self contained & just need to outfit ourselves with some solar panels, a couple more batteries & an inverter. Tanks can be dumped when needed by driving into Ajo or any nearby RV facility with a dumping station. Anyway, something we are seriously considering.
It was windy in Ajo but not as bad as Hickiwan Trails in Why where we had come from & on the way back to Hickiwan we noticed how much windier it was getting & by the time we got to our motorhome it was like we were in a wind tunnel again. Of course not the other RV's though. Hmmmmmm!! Tried to set up a chair & it blew down. My hat took off & the last we heard was a U.S. Air Force bulletin about an unidentified flying object looking like a cowboy hat westbound at 25,000 feet somewhere over southern California.
It wasn't until around 7 o'clock to-night that we noticed the wind gusts were not quite as severe & the stretches of calm between them were getting longer. Because they are calling for rain in the early morning I figured it would be best to set up the satellite dish to-night & keep my fingers crossed that it will be ok overnight when the winds are predicted to diminish. So far so good.
When I had the dogs out last night I saw 3 more yellow flashes (flares) in different parts of the sky as the tiny blinking lights of the fighter jets criss crossed through the stars. Saw a bright light flash on coming my way for about 5 seconds so figured it was one of them throwing on his landing lights for whatever reason. (maybe he was sent out to search for my cowboy hat)
Hard to tell how high he was. Sure would be interesting to know what those guys are doing up there.
Well, at least I know what we're doing down here........sending a few words upstairs to get the wind stopped over on this side of the park too.......10-4!!
P.S. I did get my hat back:))
(My apologies to the VRay family)
And I went out looking in my yard before noticing you got your hat back!
ReplyDeleteThe hermit