Let me start with last night. The entertainment here was a dance. I had convinced Bob that we should go, even for a short time. He had agreed. We were sitting here reading when there was a knock on our rig. It was the woman who joined me at the entertainment the night before. She had remembered my description of our rig and wondered if I wanted to go to the entertainment with her again. Bob was very happy that he did not have to go.
There were about 2000 people in a very large room, first eating cake. Then music provided by a deejay. Some were dancing. Most were talking. I was standing around watching people and talking to my new friend when I saw the man who had camped next to us at the last rally that we attended. I went up to him and he remembered me and we sat and talked for a long time. Then he left and there was another couple who sat down next to us. They were almond farmers from Modesto California and very interesting to talk to. I am meeting so many people here.
When I got up this morning and went on line, the weather report indicated rain most of the day, especially in the mid afternoon when Bob and I were supposed to be driving the carts. I was worried because those carts are pretty open and Bob was still feeling pretty congested. We decided that we had already put in a lot of hours volunteering and I called the captain and told him that we could not do it. So we had the whole day. We were thinking of leaving here early because of the rain, but the weather reports said that it would be just as bad, or worse in Rapid City when we got there - the storm was going east. Besides that, there was really no good place to stay and it is only 120 miles from here to where we will be tomorrow night. So we decided to stay here.
It rained in the morning, then the sun came out. We took a walk. Then I took a longer walk. I was just getting settled here and looked up at the sky and there was a HUGE black cloud just to the south of us. You could see the wind swirling around in it. I went on line and learned that there were tornedo warnings here until 6 pm. The wind started first. It was ferocious. Bob thinks that it got up to 80 miles an hour. We watched peoples' flagpoles get ripped off their rvs. (We had already taken ours down and folded it and put it away.) Then the rain started. It was a driving rain in the wind and was really scary. We were watching everything go flying past us and decided that we needed to put in the slide and make sure that all the windows were closed. (This all took about 3 or 4 minutes.) We then pulled out a bottle of wine and watched and listened. The sounds on the roof were really loud and the rain drops were huge. The windows fogged up and I took a towel and dried a couple so I could see what was happening. There was a river of water running through the gravel on both sides of us. It looked like it was moving the gravel.
There is a mobile service here that comes to the rvs and washes them with power jets. They had just started to wash the rv two doors down when all this started. These guys tried valiantly to continue washing in the pouring rain. They got wetter and wetter. They finally gave up. But an impressive try.
Our car was parked a few feet away and it looked like their were mounds of white gravel on top of the regular red gravel. When the rain stopped and I had a chance to look out, I realized that it was not white gravel on top of red gravel. It was huge mounds of hail alongside each car. That was why it was so loud on our roof.
The pouring rain lasted about 30 minutes. Then it started to subside and was just raining, without much wind. Rvs started to come out of their muddy parking lots and move onto the gravel and the paved parking lots. People started to walk around again (there was one lady walking her dog even in the worst of the storm)
It has now stopped raining completely. I went outside and found a laundry basket, an empty garbage bag, and a pair of eye glasses. I dumped the garbage bag in the trash, moved the laundry basket to the common area, and put the glasses out of the way, but in plain sight. Wow.
As this was all happening, I kept watching to see if there were any leaks. There were none. I am relieved, especially after the leaks we have had before. But I sat here with my glass of wine and watched. At a certain point Bob said, you know, this is actually fun. It is an adventure. As long as we are safe, dry, and warm, it is an adventure. More adventures to come.
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