Storms and Coffee

Gee, I may get bounced from blogland if I don't start entering some words in here. Bad, bad and lazy!

We've been experiencing our monsoon season with a complete BANG!

As I was travelling through a portion of the open desert, on my way to work, the weather alert went off over the radio! Storms on the way! Electrical and high winds coming straight down highway 93/95 ... hey wait a minute that's my route to work today.

Sure enough as I drove out into the open I saw huge black clouds and I knew for sure it was going to be a whopper. As I rounded a bend I saw the most beautiful sight in front of me and pulled over to take a couple of photos. The very beginning of the storm. I was running late so could only manage a quick minute for this plus the fact I was in very soft sand and knew if I got caught in the rain I would be calling a tow truck!

All went well as I made it to work on time and about an hour later our lights flickered in the casino, sky turned black, lightening and thunder all around and over us.

Thank goodness I didn't have to drive into the washes and back roads right then. The wind was horrible. We were all sure there were tornados on the way!

Well, I thought to myself, I don't get off work until 1am tonight and surely the storm will be over by then!

Not so. The whole of highway 95 was shut down. A bad accident and at least 15 power poles broken off like thin toothpicks, scattered all over the highwaywith live wires everywhere. OK, I'll go the other way thru the desert and by-pass the whole mess. As I was passing the AVI Casino (out in the middle of the desert) I decided to check with security and see if the south part of the highway was open. Hmmmm no chance was what they told me.

Well then I guess I'll just go play a bit of 3 card poker for an hour ...... 4 hours later security came up to me and said part of the highway was open now but toactually get to Golden Shores (my home) I would have to take a few detours east of the highway. No problem! I grabbed a cuppa, my trusty snack of Fritos and took off! What I saw along the way was just beyond belief! Mud and water and power poles with live wires down all over the place and no lights anywhere but lots of police and directions thru the east side of the hiway, again thru the desert.

I was really worried about my little dog Oscar and my little shack .... I had visions of everything being gone from the microburst but when I pulled into my driveway, the house was still standing, no damage here and upon opening the door Oscar jumped on me once, gave me a quick lick and made a beeline for the outdoors! Hmmmm, wonder if he had a full bladder, poor guy. Oh yes, we had POWER!!! I found out later the power had been out right after I left for work for about 4 hours.

I grabbed my pj's, fed and watered Oscar and dove into bed (6am) I knew I had to sleep fast as I had to be to work by 4pm! I had about 4-5 hrs of sleep, got up, showered and was out the door by 2pm. Wasn't feeling perky but I made it for another 8 hour shift.

Driving back to work during the day I really saw the damage! The power poles are still down but I noticed new ones are laying next to the broken ones now. Hopefully the jerry rigging of wires will be taken care of soon. The news broadcast said today that another 4 to 5 days before all is completed.

How could this beautiful sight of the sun and clouds turn into such a devastating storm?