Blogging, mmm, is it my thing? I was told that it would be like writing a journal. So here I sit, journaling. We have set out on great adventures. The three of us. Michael; my husband, myself and Hennessey our miniature poodle. Seeing America the beautiful. It really is beautiful. The beauty of each of our states reflects its geographic and cultural uniqueness. Some are subtle while others are very obvious. We have noticed that the road color change depending on where we are, the root color may be red, black or another color. This, of course, has to do with the earth/soil from which it was locally made. Michael is color blind and he at times is able to notice the change.
We have been traveling through the midwest and southwest states. There has been a lot of ” weather.”. I say weather in quotes because from the area we are from there is not much change from day to day, much less hour to hour. First, there were the signs going into Arizona giving us a heads up to the fact that we may encounter a dust storm. Nice to know. However, what to do, if in fact, we encounter one?? Well, we came into New Mexico and here was the answer to our dust storm questions. This state had large billboards on the side of the road telling us exactly what to do. Keep our seatbelts on, pull over to the side of the road, take your foot off the break, turn off your headlights and wait for the storm to pass. (There may have been more information, this is what I recall). We felt like the state of New Mexico cared about their travelers’ safety. Thankfully we did not need to put this information to use on this trip.
We moved on to Texas. Serious weather to be found here. Thunderstorms, where you are told to move inside and stay away from windows. How am I supposed to see the lighting light up the sky? Well, of course, you’re not, you’re to be safe. Then we found ourselves in a tornado watch. Never being in a tornado watch we weren’t sure what to expect. We didn’t even know that there are to steps when it comes to tornados watch and warning. A warning being the scariest of the two. We knew what campground we were in, not what county we were in, or the names of the counties near us. You really should have this information so that you understand what danger you are in. The park rangers didn’t seem concerned at all when we asked them what we should do should the tornado come our way. We were directed to the brick building that is the restroom/showers. We were told that we would have three to thirteen minutes to get to our safe place. Our safe place was too far for either of us to walk to. We figured out how to disconnect the RV quickly and Michael slept in his clothes. The news kept extending the watch by several hours and he ended up staying awake most of the night. Thankfully there was no tornado. We didn’t find out for several days that there was a difference in the degree of tornados. That is when we learned about the warning and watch. We skirted areas that had warnings, we never were in a warning. However, we were humbled by the power of Mother Nature with her tornados.
There is so much flooding. We have traveled through so much damaged farmland from the floods. We are heartsick for the farmers. All the crops that will not be planted and harvested. The rarity of some foods will be seen soon and the prices will reflect that.
Our country is beautiful and most of the people are nice.