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Monday, March 30, 2009

They Call The Wind....

The big story of the day is the wind.  I know I have had a few words to say about the wind in South Texas over the past couple months.  That was no wind at all compared to what we experienced this morning.

It was quite windy as we pulled into the campground late yesterday afternoon.  It remained steady at maybe 30 mph throughout the evening.  We changed our meal plans accordingly.  We had planned to grill steaks.  This campsite has a fire ring, we have a grill basket and charcoal.  We were excited about having a real, honest-to-goodness, grilled steak.  The wind, however, forced us to use the George Foreman.  The wind was blowing so hard it was difficult to get in and out of the Montana and not let the door be ripped out of your hand.

As night came on, the winds died down and it was quite pleasant. We went to bed and, having had a stressful day, were sleeping soundly.  The wind woke me about 12:30 AM.  Apparently, it is not uncommon for the wind to come back up during the night.

As time passed, the wind got progressively stronger and this Montana was rockin’ and rollin’.  So much so that I became very nervous, first about the front landing gear giving way under so much stress, and second, about the whole trailer turning over.

Sleeping was impossible so a little after 4 o’clock I got up.  To my horror, it seemed much worse down in the living area.  Our slides were actually rocking separately from the trailer. I quickly gathered up what I thought we would need for breakfast, picked up the throw rugs, and stowed the recliner and end table to bring in the slides.  That was a great improvement, especially, in eliminating the noise from the flapping slide covers.  It was too late, however, as we learned this afternoon.  One of the slide cover awnings had already been destroyed.

As daylight broke, Gene went out to gather up our things from around the campground—our welcome mat and our wheel chocks.  Even the sewer hose support tried to escape.  There were lots of things scattered about the campground including one the large wheeled garbage dumpsters.  Later in the morning as we ventured out, we noticed that the New Mexico State flag was hanging from its pole by one corner.  When we returned later, it was completely gone.

We holed up until about mid morning before deciding to do a little reconnaissance of the two national parks nearby—Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains.  We went to Carlsbad Caverns first and pick up maps and talked to the ranger about cavern tours.  We came back to the trailer for lunch, happy to see it was still in the upright position.  After lunch we drove the 35 miles down to Guadalupe Mtn.

We have in mind to hike Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas, while we are here.  “Legendary” was a word we have heard associated with the wind in Guadalupe.  In our discussion of the wind with the ranger he said today’s winds are supposed to gust to 80 mph.  He showed us a picture of a motor home on it’s side in their campground.

We stopped on the way home to buy fuel.  Gene left his door open while he was fueling;  I opened my door to let in a little fresh air.  What was I thinking?  I guess I wasn’t thinking.  With both doors open, the wind blew everything in the front seat around including Gene’s sunglasses which blew completely out of the truck and landed in some unknown substance in front of the fuel pump.  Yuk!

The wind was too strong today for us to have driven out of here, even if we had a place to go.  All I can say is “batten down the hatches”.  Gene cut the tattered slide awning off so our slide will retract properly.  We’re hoping for the best.

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