Day started beautifully.. after a good night sleep in the camper. cabe got out his two junk mandolins and serenaded us a bit as we drove fluffy to get her inspections.. You normally need to go to the DMV (Department of mutant vehicles) for a separate day driving and night driving permit.. but we’ve been fast tracked as a known car with good standing.. so we got to go just once.
The other certification is with the Fire Arts Safety Team (FAST). thats required for any car or art piece that has fire effects. Our rig is a mediam sized one as they go..I’m always nervous about this inspection because I lead the build on our fire rig..
turned out i didnt need to worry. once again we got a clean bill of health and even some compliments about our setup.. I love hearing that. I even got toe put our permit on the back of the buis.. it s a big deal to me to make this rig safe.
We drove around for a biut.. and watched as the wind picked up.. first soem dust devils.. then a full on sandstorm…
and then.. sand-pocolipse !!!!
I’ve been coming here 7 times abnd have seen my share of sandstorms.. but nothing like this ! We all grabbed whatever shelter we could. we were lucky .. because we had the camper..
We later learend that Max had to shelter out near an art peice eh was helping wiht ..
the air went from dusty.. to grey.. and eventually to orange and.. at one point blood red. We couldn’t see anything further than about 3 feet outside of our windows. We heard on BMIR (Burnign man radio) that the winds was close to 50 mph.. which is near hurricane force.. Actually.. the last tiem I was in winds liek that WAS a huricane in houston when I was young
we heard stuff flying around, we heard a hexayurt explode and saw pieces flying through the sky.
Even though we had the camper windows and vents closed, dust came in through the window seals .. and filled the air with dust and coated everything with a fine layer.
Even our skin was coated.. there’s a picture in here of dianes legs after she took off her socks… it looks like she’s wearing tights.. but its all dust
Eventually the winds died down and we were able to head outside to survey the damage. FLuffy was ok… but our campsite was a mess.. our kitchen shad structure was a mangled mess, the wind actually pent metal tubes and broke metal fittings. there were clothes and tarps all over the place,
Our neigbors at El Pulpo camp also lost their shade area… as we later would learn most shade structures in the entire city were destroyed.. it was a mess
As night fell, Our friends lit up Pulpo and blew soem fire to restore morale
and that worked !!!!
What an adventure !
nite all, nite sam
-me