WY/NE: A Day of Storms
A marathon and epic day.. First - fixing the drawer. After replacing the screw, tightening the others up, and then an hour of 3 people trying to finesse it back in, success finally!!! The trick is repeatedly slamming the drawer in and out until the soft close piece on the back of the slide rail is banged in. Whew! We are ever so careful with that drawer now!
Next, an hour late, we head to Boulder for tea and cookies with yet another decades-old friend who has moved to Colorado. Short visit turned into longer than we expected and we had to be in Chadron, NE by evening to campout at Marc’s, a Doctors Without Borders colleague of mine in Ethiopia and North Sudan. It was a 5 hour drive that became epic! Weather!!!
As we hit Cheyenne, WY there were warning signs about the standing water. But the road was dry. Puzzling… Figured it must be an old warning. Then in a bit as we created a hill, it was apocalyptic. The hail was so think on the sides of the road it looked like 3" of snow. The sky ahead was deep sea blue. The gale winds were scary. Water was indeed on the road. Lightening strikes were laser flashes piercing the ground. We briefly thought we might be grounded here. After all, warning signs said, "When thunder Roars, Go Indoors! STOP all activities. Seek shelter in hard-topped vehicle." But I clutched the steering wheel and we persevered only to be stopped shortly with a pounding rain. We prudently pulled over like others. With the slightest hint of the pummeling letting up and seeing other cars moving, we ventured out again taking a route that we hoped chased a blue horizon between 2 patches of dark skies.
Hail covered road in Wyoming
It seemed that we had succeeded and were in the clear when all of a sudden our false calm was abruptly shattered when pummeled yet again by spats of mega raindrops that turned into a driving hail storm. It sounded like a barrage of artillery fire hitting the van. We decided to push through hoping to get to the other side...or were we driving ourselves into a maelstrom. Were the solar panels and our windshield able to withstand the onslaught? With huge relief we made it through to the promised land of sunny skies framed in a vivid rainbow. I have never seen weather like this.
Rainbow after the hail storm
Finally, 2 hours late we arrived at Marc's serene farm. So good to see this old friend and colleague and his partner, Lisa. The evening was topped off with yak meat chili cooked in a solar oven. What a day. Off to the van and bed for the night. We opened the sliding door and it was the attack of the moths!!! There must have been 20 - 30 moths! We counter attacked by turning off the lights and then I stood at the back of the van with doors open and headlamp on to coax them out. After several forays to entice them out of the van, we happily settled to having only 3 or 4 left to cohabitate with us.
What a long eventful day.....