I wrote most of this as I was writing out the blog entry.

This sucks SO bad. A HUGE dust storm kicked up and the weather people (who didn’t mention ANYTHING about ANYTHING ten minutes ago, now say that there’s a sever thunderstorm coming through right now. No kidding. Thanks, guys.

Later
The tent is blowing over and I’ve had to fashion a new way to keep it in the ground. I’m using my tie down straps to hold up the side that keeps blowing down.

My tent poles are literally held together with cheap duct tape.

There is dust everywhere. I have to keep the windows open or the wind blows the tent over. But with the windows open, the dust comes through the screen.

Little later…
The weather people are now saying it’s partly cloudy with winds at 16mph. They are clearly lying to me. Even the radar shows nothing. I guess this is how they do things in Idaho. Want to know what the weather’s going to be? Just wait… it’s a surprise!

Dust is EVERYWHERE. It’s in my teeth, in my eyes, I’m covered in it. The floor of my tent is covered.

The tent is ripping. I’m not sure that it’s going to make it through this. The poles were broken during the Gallup, NM wind storms and I’ve wrapped them in duct tape. They seem to be holding and that’s really really weird.

My analysis of weather.
Weather hates me when I’m riding. As the long-time readers will know, I’ve had REALLY bad luck with weather, especially in Route 66. But when I was in Albuquerque the first time (not riding), the weather was GREAT. As soon as I left - wind, rain and snow. Oh, but when I got to Berkeley (again, not riding), the weather was amazing!

It then tried to trick me by being pretty good to Salt Lake City. And when I got there and traveled with Sarah (again again not riding), the weather was great! And last night it dipped into the freezing temps and right now I’m sitting with my back to the tent wall, holding it up against 60mph winds.

Seriously, knock it off.

Looking to the west, I can see it getting really dark. If things go bad and start to really rain, I’ll take my act indoors.

More later…
The wind died down for a bit, but now it’s picking up with rain. The neighbor’s tent just blew down. Possibly away. It’s dark now and hard to tell. They’re very unhappy about it.

They’re having a much rougher time than I am. They’ve got several tents and they’re all blowing down. If I were them, I’d go to a motel. But I’m just me and if I have to abaondon ship, I can hide out in the bathroom. The office and recroom are closed, so I can’t do much about that. It seems we’ve been sort of abandoned by the campground manager.

At least it’s not snowing.
I guess.

The neighbors are sticking around. Hats off to the troopers!

Later still
You know how they always tell you that tornadoes sound like freight trains? Well, you know what else sounds like freight trains? Freight trains. And there’s one right by the campsite every 20 minutes or so. I’ll hear this rumbling in the distance, the wind will pick up (because that’s what wind does) and suddenly there’s a rumbling sound like a freight train!

Because it’s a freight train.

Morning edit
All is fine. The storms passed with a little rain and now it’s nearly 7am. People are up and coughing. A lot of people are up. I think there’s only one bathroom for the entire camp. That bathroom includes one toilet and one urinal and two showers. This should be an incredible start to my day.

Here are The Monks with “Hushy Pushy” to get you started on your day.

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