Hail, thunder, rain, and lightning...a flat tire too....

Our Location:  Hereford Aquatic Center, Hereford, Texas

No blog yesterday so I’ll do one big one tonight. Friday was a sort of quiet day, we did a fuel run (forgot to take the camera so no photos of that), a few groceries and found a First National Bank with an international ATM. Back home we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon just puttering around and doing a few little things. 

 

It was dark over there, the water was a dark green colour.

 

Well that is until I noticed one of the trailer tires looked a bit slack. Sure enough down to 40 pounds. Looking around I noticed a nail head sticking out of the tread. I was not impressed. Alison offered to remove the tire for me (she had also taken a nail out of one of her tires here the day we arrived) for me on Saturday (the next morning). 

 

A bright spot among the darkness.

Looking at the sky and checking the weather we were in the path of a severe line of thunderstorms moving at about 50 miles an hour through the area. We found a place here we could take refuge if necessary, pulled in the big slide and hooked up the truck due to the extreme winds that we were expecting. Soon the hail came, started off small, like the eraser on the end of a pencil, ending up about the size of a marble. It went on and on and on and on and on. Eventually it turned to rain and eventually stopped but for a couple of hours it was an ugly night here. A fair bit of lightning and some thunder but not the big winds they were expecting.

 

It was very dark to the north of us and we thought at first it miss us.

 

A few small dents on the truck but nothing major, and I haven’t yet climbed up the ladder to look at the panels on the roof. I will when we park in Natural Falls State Park. Still this morning there was a great deal of water laying around everywhere but I didn’t see any damage. Lark (a lady from Wisconsin and a friend of Alison’s) had both of her vent covers broken by the hail but other than that we couldn’t really find any thing except a couple of small dents on the vehicles. I think we were fortunate. At one point the hail covered the grass and the pavement, like snow. 

But then this rolled right over us.

This morning dawned with bright blue skies and warmer temperatures. After coffee, Lark left, heading toward Oklahoma City for the  night before heading on home. Alison came by to take the tire off and lucky thing she did because only two of the bolts were what one would consider is tight, the rest were snug but not as tight as they should have been. With the tire off, we headed to Walmart to get it patched. They assured me it was patched and plugged but I’m not so certain.
 

It was clear then to the north.

 

Back home Alison and I put the tire back on and went around to check all of the wheels, just the one with the nail was questionable, the others were all fine, very tight. So I’m not sure why that would be but I’m going to keep an eye on it for certain. 

After things settled down, it started to clear up.

 

After that I helped Alison with a couple little things, we chatted for a couple of hours discussing many things. Finally we parted ways and I came home to have some lunch, Riley and I spent the rest of the day doing a few puttering things. 

Blurry but you get the idea.

 

I chatted with my buddy Ron, we’ll be meeting up with him and his lovely wife Sharon on Tuesday. We are looking forward to that, it’s been a couple of years since we’ve seen them. 

Still raining but you can see the hail stones washed into piles. That isn't white stones, it's hail.

 

So the day is winding down and tomorrow we are off to Elk City, OK. One step closer to our week long destination. Hopefully we get no more bad weather. So that’s it, our last couple of days. 

 

The water has heaped the hail in piles.

 

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed your visit.  

 

That's water running down the sidewalk into the pond. A accumulating in puddles in the parking lot. I didn't do any enhancing of any kind to this photo. This is how it came from the camera. If you look at the first photo in this post you can see how dry the parking lot is before the storm.

 

Until next time… take care, be safe, 

 

Deb

Busy, wet day....

Our Location: Bluegrass Rv Park, Foley, Alabama

The night was warmish and inside was almost moist with the humidity as the morning came into being today. Didn't take long to turn on the heater as the moisture seemed almost cool. Wasn't long before we were shutting the heat off. ~laugh~  

HUP-3 Retriever Navy Helicopter

Breakfast over we loaded ourselves into the temporary set of wheels we are driving and headed out to S. Pecan Street's dead end section to get our morning walk in. The weather was nice but it was windy with a few clouds rolling in. The sounds of a nail gun were constant during our walk today as was the sound of two airplanes circling overhead and making that sound you often associate with old war movies of planes diving toward each other. 

F1 Phantom

The green fields are proof of the upcoming spring, the blazing Camellia bushes are everywhere adding a splash of colour in various places along the road sides. Trees seem to be pushing out a few hints of buds and new leaves as well. Amazing the way spring comes here so early. 

 

F2H- Banshee

 

After our walk we climbed back into our 'rental' and headed out to Florida once again and the Navy base there. Our trip last week was a quickie trip and only whetted our appetite to see more.  We took a detour though before getting to the Naval base, instead opting to check out a future campground. Big Lagoon State Park offers promise for another time. The park has numerous sites, some with cement pads, some with small patches of sand, some with longer uneven sites, and some that look just like pretty good sites. We will keep it in mind for future visits. We made note of the sites we think would work for us just in case we want to make a reservation. Two weeks max stay in the park. No sewer, only a dump station, but lots of walking paths and white sand.This park is the state of Florida close to the Navy base. 

Fighter Jet parked outside the Museum

Arriving at the Navy base the line up to get in was long, took us at least 10 minutes to make it to the check point. Today the Navy was checking id's, not the tin men they had the other day. Today they actually checked our ids, to make certain we matched our pictures, unlike the last time, the guy didn't even look at the passports we handed him. Today they even wanted to see my drivers license along with my passport. Nice young fellas, polite, official, and efficient, just what you'd expect from the Navy!!!

Underside of 2 of the 4 Blue Angel Planes hanging from the ceiling.

Reaching the Museum we parked quite far out as the inner parking areas were all full. It's much busier these days than it used to be. Not complaining, always nice to see people making use of the opportunities to learn more about their own history, their life and liberty. Major check points at the door as well, had to go back to the rent-a-wreck and get my id or I couldn't get in the door. I had left my purse locked in the car because it's heavy and a pain in the ass to carry all the time but I wasn't going to walk all the way back to the car to put it away again. 

One of the many helicopters in the museum

We spent some time walking around, viewing the planes and helicopters, blimps, cars, jeeps, and camps that are scattered over a huge space. There is very little free space that isn't jammed full of artifacts of various kinds. Almost all of the planes/helo's/ exhibits have their information displayed in front of them, but some of those hanging from the ceiling or walls are often hard to find the information about them. Picture taking is also difficult as the exhibits are almost stacked on top of each other and in some cases are literally stacked one on top of the other. At one point I counted 4 planes stacked almost directly on top of each other. It's sometimes difficult to tell while looking at them where one plane starts and one stops, so when you look in the pictures, it's confusing. 

A Japanese ZERO airplane

We toured the Hanger Bay 1 today as well. We were able to board the front of Air Force One Helicopter used by both Ford and Nixon during their tenure in the White House, with a wax figure of Nixon sitting in the helicopter on display. Among the many things to see there were coast guard rescue helicopters and paraphernalia they use in their jobs every day such as rescue baskets, ropes, winches, etc. It was in this hanger that Riley and I took part in our first simulator ride of the day. It was a small set of seats that moved with the flight of the Blue Angels. Not as lively as the other simulator but it was enjoyable all the same. It gave you an idea of what the Blue Angels precision flying team is capable of in their shows. It described a number of the maneuvers they perform as well as take you through the maneuver. 

 

Man on the moon, and a lunar landing module.

 

From this hanger we went back to the Museum building and moved upstairs to continue our tour. We once again rode the Blue Angels Simulator just as we did on Friday when we visited. It was still interesting but not as thrilling as the first ride. We found out that we could take a different ride in the same simulator which would be more in keeping with the Desert Storm air assault and for an extra $3 each we took that flight as well. It had much different kinds of graphics and did a bit more maneuvering than the other flight. We enjoyed it a great deal. 

 

Nixon aboard Air Force One Helicopter

 

That brought us to the end of the day for touring the Museum, we may go back one more time to take a guided tour and ride the trolley into the bone yard to see some other planes, but we'll figure that out another time. From the Museum we headed down to Fort Barrancas, which we may tour at some point but as we pulled into the parking lot it began to rain. We decided to head home. 

 

Japanese GEORGE airplane

 

It rained all the way home and at times rained pretty hard, with lightning in the sky but line not sheet lightning. Lots of rumbling thunder as well. Home and into the Igloo we found that the rain picked up steadily and the thunder and lightning were loud and continuous for most of the afternoon. I had myself a little nap as I was totally exhausted for some reason. The rain continued until after dinner time. 

 

Riley testing her wings...

 

Dinner time for me wasn't happening, I just wasn't hungry, so Riley made herself some Turkey taco's and seemed to enjoy them a great deal. Sorry no pics. 

 

After that we cleaned up and I read for most of the evening. A call from Dad to check on us as he heard of bad weather down here in our neighbourhood. Always nice to hear  from folks whether it's on the phone, text or email. 

Headed off to bed around 10:30 and start editing pics from today, and to write my blog. Later than usual doing that but I was enjoying my book. 

Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoyed your visit. Until next time...be safe, take care.....