Gone With the Wind

Dean  (the husband)
Shalane  (the wife  :O)

Living in the mountains provides some of the most beautiful scenery that nature can offer.  However, as we found out last night, it can also provide some of the strongest straight line wind gusts.  We learned two valuable lessons from last night’s events that I would like to pass on to our readers.

CALM WINDS AT 10 pm MEAN NOTHING!

Lesson #1:  As we crawled into the back of our truck at the free campground in Pioche last night, the wind was almost completely calm.  This wasn’t our first overnighter, so we always secure our portable outhouse to a couple of objects in case the wind picks up a little bit.  Also, on the inside, we place a couple of rocks to secure it in place.  However, just after midnight, we had a canyon breeze blow down off the mountain that sent EVERYTHING in motion.  I got up,  as tropical storm force winds raged outside, and took down the shelter.  Dean is such a good guy.  He didn't even wake me up to help him.  He just got up and took care of it. I slept through the whole thing. This is a fairly typical occurrence, though maybe not to the degree that it came last night.  Colder air at the top of mountains sink down into the valleys almost every night.  It is something to consider.   Our solution for the next excursion is to go ahead and Velcro in the entire flooring in the shelter and put more heavy objects down to secure it a little better.  My solution is to NOT leave the shelter up over night.  Hopefully, it will fair better the next time.

SLEEPING IN THE BACK OF A TRUCK (or an rv) IS MUCH BETTER THAN A TENT!

That's an understatement!

Lesson #2:  As the wind gusts raged on in the middle of the night, I noticed that the truck was not moving at all.  I can remember the good ol’ days camping with the family in a tent.   Winds like we experienced last night would have made for a miserable night of sleep under the canvas.  Especially if we had little ones that were afraid that we would blow away and end up in OZ.  Trust me, all Kansas kids know this movie and have this nightmare.  Our children spent a lot of their childhood in Kansas and watch Wizard of Oz many times, so a strong wind was a real threat.  We would have been worried all night about the stakes and poles would have held.  The noise would have been awful, as well as the wind whipping the fabric of the tent back and forth.  Been there!  I'm sure many of you have too!  It's not fun.

Overall, it was a very restful night of sleep, especially for my wife.  She had our young friend, who visited us yesterday from Las Vegas, pick up a foam cushion from Wal-Mart.  She put it on her cot and slept like a baby.  Even as I write this blog, early in the morning, she is still fast asleep.  I doubt that would have been the case in a tent.  Be back tomorrow evening with more of our adventures.  Until then, Happy Trails!  Bye!  :O)