After The Storm

Last night the storm hit. It was one of the very rare times the dog and I were actually a tad scared. Earlier I had folded up the patio umbrella as that takes 10 seconds. The RV awning takes a bit longer.  I wasn't expecting a storm, just some rain, so I angled it for fast draining.

After the storm hit, the winds kicked up, blowing the awning which shook the motorhome like we were sailing in choppy seas.

Rut roh.

In the wind driven rains, I went outside in the dark to try to put the awning away completely. This

was impossible, all alone, with the high winds,  but I was able to drop it down super low at a 30 degree angle to the wheel estate with the frame still out to steady it. Had the winds been normal, putting it away alone would have been a simple matter.

I ran back inside, standing on the entry rug, soaking it immediately with my rain sodden clothes. Amazingly, the rocking and rolling stopped inside, the dog quit shaking, but the storm continued to swirl around us. I could hear a big tree breaking up, falling in the woods with a thud that would have even shook up Big Foot. The rat-a-tat-tat on the roof sounded like hail.

But it could have been the squirrels clogging and square dancing up there.

Finally the dog and I climbed in bed with the cell phone, GPS and flashlight. I left his harness on though usually I take it off of him when we are snugly inside for the night. It gives the harness a chance to air out and  Harley can lay on his back for his treasured belly rubs.

I figured if a tornado relocated us, assuming we survived the move, we could use the cell phone to alert someone of our change of address per the GPS. I think by now the storm was making my thinking cloudy, but at the time, it seemed like a grand idea.

Speaking of being lost after a storm...

My bush doctor and his nurse wife on St John in the Virgin Islands, were neighbors and friends of mine. One summer he closed up shop so he and his wife could sail for Venezuela. They anchored in a gorgeous harbor with a fabulous view of life ashore. That night it rained, so they had to close up the hatches and turn on a fan. The next  morning they arose for coffee in the cockpit only to discover they were completely surrounded by ocean with not a speck of land in sight.

This was before GPS was commonly available. They had no idea when they had broke anchor, or how long they had been adrift or where on earth they were. Eventually they got out the charts showing their last known position in the anchorage. They figured up a worse case scenario of assuming their sailboat began drifting 5 minutes after they went to sleep multiplied by the maximum hull speed of the boat at drift.

For you non-sailors, a boat's hull displaces the water. It can only go a certain maximum  speed, no matter what is powering it, be it engine or wind. If the boat is forced into going faster than that, it will sink!

Anyhow, back to drifting from Venezuela. The next problem was a strange ponderosity.  Which

pushed them out to sea, the currents or the wind or a combination or both?  What if they had drifted one way for awhile then the winds, seas and currents had pushed them another way?

Finally they penciled in a huge crescent across the chart, of where they might conceivable be. They fired up the engine and motored for hours, eventually  grateful to see land in sight. They ended up just a few harbors from whence they came. All's well ends well.

Back on land at the park where I am workamping, I woke up at 4am in extreme pain because my bed is pure torture. It's old, the innersprings are shot and it's become the most miserable thing to lay upon. Last year I tried buying a mattress topper to add some comfort. Ha ha ha, what was I thinking?

The comfort lasts about an hour then those dreadful innersprings start settling at odd angles poking me in all the wrong places.

Honest to goodness, I'm beginning to think that 90% of my sleep and pain issues are this tortuous bed. I am going to donate it to a dungeon really soon.

At daybreak, I leashed up a reluctant Harley for a walk through the park. What a shock that was, with busted up tree branches littering my entire patio, driveway and most of the roads and parking lots.

What a shame.

Just yesterday the maintenance crew arrived all abuzz with lawn mower, weed whacker and leaf blower. They mowed the lawn, trimmed all the weeds around the utility posts for the RV, then used their blower to clean my patio.  My little campground for one looking stunningly beautiful. I wish I had taken a picture of how pretty it was. How was I to know a storm would wreck it in under 24 hours?

After the maintenance crew left,  Harley and I came out to play golf. Puppy was thrilled to be able to see his lawn. He is so tiny, that when the grass gets tall, it's like a little jungle for him. He can't even see his toys laying ten feet away. So yesterday with the newly cut lawn,  we played golf until he collapsed with his little rib cage just heaving and a big puppy grin on his goofy face.

He looked wore out, his sides were pumping so hard, that I picked him up in my arms, to come inside, parking him in front of his water bowl. He seemed extremely grateful.

At least we woke up alive!  YAY!  And the storm didn't turn us upside down.  I was super grateful because after the storm, the next morning, I spoke with a friend who said he had a vision of finding me upside down. Yikes!