HAPPY 90th BIRTHDAY, VIRGINIA! WE HOPE YOU HAVE A FANTASTIC DAY!
Day 144 – The heavy rain continued, the temperature didn’t drop during the night. 58 degrees at 7 a.m. We’re trying to figure out whether we should leave before the heavy winds arrive, not to go home yet because we don’t have time to pack everything up, drain the hoses & pipes, etc., but to go somewhere with less trees for the night & tomorrow.
There’s way too much to do in order for us be able to leave with the RV & head for home before the winds are too strong to be safely driving in a high-profile vehicle. That much we know. Just to prepare the RV in order to be able to drive it out of here to a local, safer place would require a decent amount of preparation. If we felt we had to leave & we left the RV here, driving away in the car, Rob would need to clean out the car to make room for the cages & litter box & I’d need to get together some GO bags. (The car also acts as a storage place for kayak/bike gear & we’d have to make room for the girls.)
The winds will supposedly increase throughout the day getting up to 36 MPH sustained winds with gusts up to 55 MPH beginning late afternoon. The forecast is for the winds to continue all night, then decrease a little into the 20’s sustained to 45 MPH gusts. We lost two large trees during the last storm, but nothing came down on the RV. This looks like it will be a bigger storm. These trees have been here for a long time & have withstood much more, presumably. We’d rather not disrupt the cats, and us, to leave. It’s entirely possible the weather forecast is wrong & nothing will happen. Oh, what to do; what to do.
1 p.m., we’ve just finished lunch. It was supposed to be getting windier as the day went on. It’s quite still out now. No wind. It’s been raining heavily most of the morning, but even that seems to be taking a break. We’ve decided to go ahead & prepare for all outcomes, just in case. The car has been emptied enough in case we need to leave in it. We’re preparing the RV for a quick, temporary departure if it becomes necessary. But that decision would have to be made before the winds go too high to drive it safely. Right now the weather is calm. We’ll see……….
4 p.m., the rain began in earnest again, no wind. Then just now, the rain stopped & it became very windy. The weather forecast has changed a little, in our favor. The heaviest sustained wind is now supposed to be until 8 p.m. at 31 MPH, not most of the night & tomorrow isn’t supposed to be steady winds in the 20 + range. Now that the wind has really started up, we brought in the RV slide-outs. Now we just look like a large van from the outside. The inside is pretty cramped. The girls don’t know what to make of this.
5:30 p.m., the wind is really gusting now, higher than we’ve ever seen it, and the trees are swaying back & forth a lot. It’s scary to look at & I wish it would get dark so I don’t have to see the trees. It’s getting dark soon & we knew we needed to decide one way or the other whether we were going to attempt to back the RV out of here. We decided NO – if we have to leave, we’ll go by car. Earlier when Rob had gone out to disconnect the larger propane tank from the RV, he saw rain water was rushing down the trails over the cliff. It had also pooled into large puddles in every low place on the land. He’d never seen it like this before.
9 p.m., very scary wind gusts, the temperature is dropping into the 40’s. A little rain. Rob agrees that it’s better that it’s dark & you cannot see the trees swaying. The wind is still continually blowing quite hard, but the big wind gusts are not quite as bad. The power has gone out briefly several times but has come back on. Fingers crossed…….
YIKES!!!