Not Again!!!

It was 2:58 am last Sunday morning when the sirens went of in the campground. We had seen on the news the night before that there were storms with a threat of Tornadoes north of us and moving towards us. They were supposed to be here by 6 am. Somebody forgot to give the weather gods a good watch, since they were here three hours early and this is just an ungodly hour to be up. We turned on the TV to see if we are under Tornado watch or "just" high winds up to 70 mph as we watched people getting in their cars and getting to the shelter stations. The storm was about 5 minutes out.

The weather channel said that it was just a severe thunderstorm and we decided to stay in bed. Thunder and lightning started and the rain was pouring down hard. Normally we have our workamping friends Dave and Julia rig as a buffer when the winds come out of the north, but unfortunately, they are on vacation for three weeks. Next thing I know the rig really shook hard. Hard enough for Doug to look at me and say "it is time to get dressed". TV got turned off and we just watched the storm out the bedroom windows, laying in bed fully dressed. Trees were bending, it looked like the flag pole from our neighbor across the street was going to break. It lasted about another 30 minutes before the wind slowed down and we decided to try to go back to sleep.

We got up around 7:30 am and I started making breakfast. There was a knock at the door and as I am opening the door I'm wondering how come my feet are wet. Well, turns out that the wind and rain beat so hard against the rig that water came through underneath the door. Luckily it only wet the floor mat and not the carpet, seams on the dining room slide, which have to be replaced since they are also rusted, were holding and we had no water there. Doug went outside to lend our telescope ladder to a fellow RVer, whose slide would not go in. Strangely enough he did not come back in so I went outside to see were he was.

As I am stepping out of the rig I noticed that our outside doormat is gone and there are a couple of soda cans on the front lawn. So I walked around the rig looking for the doormat to notice that we are not the only people missing stuff and people are wandering around trying to collect their stuff again.

This picture is taking from our couch, which is on the kitchen side and opposite of the entrance door. If you zoom in on the picture you will see a road in the background and luckily there is a chain link fence in front of the road. That is were Doug finally found our doormat. If it would have not been for the fence it would have been gone forever. Our neighbor with the flag pole lost one of his flags in the storm. This has been the worst storm yet and we are being told that the season is not over yet. The only thing we did loose was a shower cap, which was keeping my bicycle seat dry and god only knows where that ended up.

We had a couple of days of heat in the high 90s and with the humidity it said "feels like 117". When we decided to take the job here I looked around to see what there was to do over the summer so we would not get bored. It never dawned on my to check out the weather, since we normally just move if we hit bad weather. Another lesson has been learned.

Work has been interesting too. As the heat increases, more and more people are quitting, some not even given a notice, which makes it difficult for our department to fill the various jobs. I have worked 96.5 hours in the last two weeks and it does not look like my hours are going to be less any time soon. On the other side Doug's ride is broke down this week and he is only working about 4 hours a day giving breaks to people that are working. It seems that about 25% of the rides are down on a daily basis, which means he might not pick up to many hours any more. Stay tuned, the adventure is not over yet!

Still In Iowa!

The month of June brought a us 13.43" of rain. We were short 0.02" for breaking the record from 2008. I think it really did not make much difference. The Des Moines River is getting very close to the top of the bridge in downtown Des Moines and when you drive by Route 65, you can see the flooded fields, electric poles under water, no streets visible and the water is about 2 feet away from the highway. We will need to get a small camera that I can keep in my purse so that we can take pictures. It is an amazing sight to see. Same goes for these amazing tall white clouds that look like big mountain ranges in the sky right before they turn dark gray and turn into rain. It sure was an interesting month of rain. I have started to draw plans for our arc on my computer.

We spend 4th of July working in the park. It rained most of the day just lightly, but they were able to get the fireworks in the park going around 9:45 pm. They are a little bit hard to see when you are working in a store. We got to see the fireworks from the casino next door the night before. They just started as we got out from work at 10:00 pm and they put on an amazing show. It was pretty cool to watch, just a little bit difficult to get back to the campground, since people parked on the side of the road, in the grass in front of the Adventureland Inn and we had to pass to security stations to get back to the campground. I have a new found respect for all the people that work on these holidays, while we used to relax, party and expect the stores to be open for our convenience. Very interesting view from the other side of the coin.

We had a big bright spot in our day last month. I had asked Jack to check out a Safeway in Colorado to look for a pancake mix we love and is allowed on our diet. He did not respond, however, Dale Bruss saw my post and checked out her local Safeway. She found four boxes and even was kind enough to send us one by mail right away. It is the same mix we had found in Oregon and our Sunday morning breakfasts are a pure delight again!!!! Thank you so much Dale and I am sure hoping you can find four more boxes on your travels before we met in Kansas this year. I will be forever grateful!

The month of July has arrived and at least in the retail department we are having our first round of people quieting. We all knew that it is not that easy of a job to stand on your feet for at least 5 hours day, but I don't understand how people can just call in and say they will not come in again. At least give a week notice so that the park has a chance to look for a replacement. Thanks to the quitters, we are now going to double shifts, which means you start at 9:40 am and work at least till 7 pm or as late as 10 pm a day. It sure makes for some long days. I did a double from 9:40 am to 9 pm last week and my poor feet were hurting at the end of the day. Next week I am scheduled for two doubles. I am certainly not complaining about not getting enough hours anymore. Doug's schedule has changed also, but not as drastically than mine. On the positive side, we are making enough money to pretty much cover our monthly bills and that was the reason why we started this job anyway. I have heard a lot of people say that they will look for work in campgrounds again next year. Maybe be will give that a shot next year. All I know right now it that the winter will bring a well deserved rest period for us.

Well, so much for today, I promise to look for small camera on our day off and start having some pictures in our blog again soon.