OK,OK, I DIDN'T REALLY EXPECT TO FLY... BUT WE ALMOST DID!!!

As you now know, we were "incommunicado" all day yesterday..Dennis luckily decided to dismantle our Hughesnet early yesterday morning...Good call, McGuyver!!
We awoke yesterday morning at 4:45AM...neither one of us had really been sleeping much of the night anyway. The winds were very strong and I ran out into our living area to check our computer lights...All 5 lights were lit; lan, transmit, receive, system and power...GOOD! This meant we were still online, and since it was still dark and we couldn't see our dish.  It also meant that the dish was still still attached to the tripod and not sitting in the desert somewhere. We watched the weather channel from the horizontal position, until we figured we might as well get up and watch it with a cup of java. When we went into the living area, the news was not good...Only the top and bottom lights were lit on our modem, which meant that we were now officially DOWN!
As soon as it got light, we went outside and brought in anything that was in danger of flying into the desert. Dennis wisely decided to dismantle our computer dish and he stowed it in the truck....If the truck flies away, then we may as well do the proverbial "bend over and kiss your ____ goodbye!! I took this shot of the clouds moving in from the Southwest...

It isn't a very good picture, but you get the idea.....
 It began raining hard right after this photo...and the wind was definitely becoming an issue. The people next to us had bird feeders still in the tree ....and they were blowing horizontally...

...notice their feeders ......
I figured crockpot soup was a good call tonight...Den will not be grilling....he probably could barely stand up.  I filled up my crockpot and then watched it slop back and forth with the swaying of our camper.  It looked like it may even slop over the top,that's how much the HitchHiker was doing the Hula...When they predicted Hurricane force winds, they were NOT kidding!! Just about the time I was ready to sit back down, a huge BOOM sounded off. It was so big it rattled the windows...Den said it was a sonic boom...The Air Force was up there somewhere still practicing maneuvers..Don't ask me how...
 It rained, and rained , and blew, and blew..We noticed the couple across the drive from us were having some bad problems..Apparently they opened the entrance door to their 5th wheel and the wind grabbed it and took it right off the hinges....Luckily he caught it and kept it from flying across the park..That could have caused some serious damage to someone's RV...like ours, for instance. We were right in the line of fire.. We watched as he and another guy worked all afternoon, in the driving rain and wind, to get the door back on...

....They left in his truck at one point and were gone a while. Den figured they ran into Ajo to the hardware store for some hinges....What a nightmare that would  have been.  As we were sitting at the rear of our camper, right beside our big window, you could actually feel the wind blowing in around it...and it groaned and popped..If you watched it closely (which I was doing constantly) you could see it flexing with the bigger wind gusts...I truly thought it may blow out with the force of the wind. Den needed to go outside and get us some ice and he had a quite a time just opening our door against the wind without letting go of it..We didn't want to be the next casualty without a door, but you know how important ice is for a well made Rum and Coke.. Dennis said that he noticed when he went out that the South side of our camper was plastered with little needles and leaves from the tree outside our door. Here is another shot I took out our window....

...doesn't really give you a true feeling of the wind that was blowing outside....I asked Dennis what the wind rating was for our 2007 HitchHiker...he didn't laugh....in fact, he looked a little like a deer in the headlights....

.....He was keeping a close eye on the window...as was I!!!
I figured I would take my shower, maybe it would have a relaxing affect...However, once I was in the shower I felt like I needed to hang on to the sides to keep from bouncing around..Now I know how our son felt taking his "navy" shower on the carrier when in rough seas! I figured that if we tipped over now, at least I was already wet!
We focused on the TV programs, but that was hard to do..We lost our electricity 5 times in 2 hours...but it always came back on . My sis called from Illinois to see if we were OK..she had read my previous blog and wondered if we truly did take flight. I assured her we were fine, just rockin' and rollin' a bit.
Den and I both agreed we had never been through such sustained winds and rain nonstop for 24 hours straight, with no relief. It was like riding out a Category 1 hurricane (without the calm of the 'eye") and being in an RV there is no place to go but UP!! By 9PM we were mentally exhausted as I'm sure everyone else in the park was. In fact, I think at this point in time, we were almost getting used to the rocking...We climbed into bed and were rocked to sleep...or should I say tossed to sleep. We didn't move until 7:30 AM this morning, when we realized that sometime in the night, the winds had finally subsided somewhat.
It still looked pretty ominous outside,but ominously beautiful...

Dennis decided the winds were not very bad now, and certainly they could'nt get like yesterday, so he reconstructed our Hughesnet dish, so we could go back online...YEA!!!! funny how quick we got used to having that thing...

I had to crank open the back window and relay the readings on the computer screen to him, so he would know when it was pointed at the right satellite...I have no clue how he knows how to do that.
 We needed to go into Ajo and get a few things, so we headed out about 10:30AM. There was quite a bunch of mud that had flowed out of the arroyo onto the road to the casino....

...here is where this stuff was flowing from....

...It's interesting how the water finds the regular paths to flow out....On Rt. 85 going into Ajo we went through a few low spots with water lying in the road, making quite a "splash"..There was a lot of debris along the road, parts of dead cactus and plants that blew into town from the desert. The temp was not as warm as I would have liked, but 54 would have pleased anyone in Illinois!
When we got back we took our walk..(we  hadn't walked in 2 days)...I checked the bulletin board to see if the Indian craft/food/pottery/jewelry show was still on for tomorrow...NADA...This could be one of the reasons...

...this is part of the place they do the cooking...and the roof needed a little lift after yesterday's winds....
We had a good laugh when we walked by these "lakes" at the front of the RV park....

...and this sign was hung in one of the trees by these little lakes...

...if you can't read it, it says, "Ray's Lake, No Fishin'"....Ray, of course, is the great character who runs this place....Apparently someone has still maintained a great sense of humor through all this...bet their door didn't fly off yesterday!
On our walk we always go up by the casino. They have a neat stick made shelter on the North side of the casino, with picnic tables...Well, it collapsed yesterday in the wind, too.

...OOPS!! No more roof! I hope someone knows "stick roof" repair around here...I'm sure there are many who know exactly what to do. We finished up our walk, noticing that there was some rain in the distant mountains...The rain is suppose to continue on and off throughout the day today.

 Well, yesterday was exactly as predicted, but I didn't really quite get it, until I was IN it!!...It was a character builder for sure...but we did find out that this ol' HitchHiker can take a pretty good hit! I've got bratwurst and sauerkraut in the crockpot..(yes, thank God for slow cookers on bad days)...and it looks like the worst is behind us. I am looking forward to  Sunday...sunny and 60 degrees predicted...chicken of the grill is also predicted..Thanks for following our blog!..I really enjoy doing it...especially when we have some different excitement...like yesterday... I just really hope that was the end of storms for a while....More tomorrow....definitely!!