WIND STORM

Hi Everyone,

We're in the Sonoran Desert, home to the famous Saguaro National Park.  We'll write a post about that soon.  Yesterday, driving across the desert the wind picked up....and up and up.  It was a cross wind and buffeted the rig quite severely from side to side across the road.  To me, this was far and away the worst driving that we've had.

I had driven through the tight cactus filled roads of the Saguaro National Park all morning, and I didn't last too long driving in the wind on I-10 before we stopped for Karin to take over.  She drove about 55mph the whole way, following a semi-truck that was also going slow (the speed limit was 75 mph, so you can imagine the conditions that would encourage a semi to drive slow).  Tumbleweeds were blowing across the interstate along with trash and dust, but Karin did an awesome job piloting the rig.  We stopped for the night at the Gila Bend Koa, where the wind was THRASHING and the temperature 93 degrees.

At our campsite, our camper was buffeted from side to side so violently, that I finally screwed down the four corner feet to stabilize it.  The wind was too strong to open the front window, roof vents, or the windows on the windward side, so we had only the door open and the windows to the leeward size.  It was blowing so hard that Karin's hair was standing straight out - in the camper!

The weather reported that we were having sustained wind of 25-45 mph, with gusts to 50.

Late in the night, the wind died down, and now in the early morning we have just a gentle breeze with the sun rising through the desert dust.  It's about 55 degrees.  Heading west today, still going to see that elephant.