Today is typical southeast Texas, sunny, 82F and breezy. Life is still good, just a couple of small bumps along the way.
The other day I inadvertently deleted maybe the best photos I've taken this year. My fault twice. I did a multi-select of the whole file to compress them after doing some minimal editing and deciding which photos to save. After I compressed them I decided to delete one more picture without realizing the multi-select was still in effect. All. Gone. Fault number two? For some strange reason I chose to work without a net. I decided I didn't need to save anything in my trash and it empties automatically by default.
Three days ago out on the Mad Max world of Texas expressways I was northbound on 281 between McAllen and Edinburg (4 or 5 lanes wide - Texans being the modern Romans of road building). I pulled out to the left to overtake a truck and was confronted by an abandoned car about 20' ahead. I mean, right there! I swerved sharply to the left, but ka-whump! I clipped the rear left we passed by. Shaken, we pulled over to the side and looked back. Yep, an unoccupied car sitting like a lonely island in the concrete of a busy expressway. We reported it to a Park Ranger in Edinburg who called it in. Too late. When we returned a short time later there were wreckers, an ambulance and two very totaled cars. Our truck has the whole right side creased, but we are extremely lucky. If I'd have pulled out 5 seconds later we'd have caught the dead car square on. Not. Good.
Our house sitter Kelly Jo called last night. There is a lot of snow building up on our Oakwood roof - a portion is flat roof with a rubber membrane. She said the circuit breaker tripped every time she plugged in the heating cables. Squirrels? So she has a water drip from the living room ceiling. Some panic phone calls and my friend John Rust is up on the roof shoveling and is going to check on the cables. My FRIEND John says he may have to shovel it twice. See below:
After two snowstorms in three days, couldn’t the National Weather Service issue a nice weather warning? Or at least give Freeborn County a day off from warnings and advisories?
Nope. The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard watch to be in effect from 6 a.m. Thursday until 6 a.m. Friday. Those times could change as the expected storm nears.
The watch is in effect for only a portion of southern Minnesota. The counties are Freeborn, Faribault, Waseca, Steele, Rice, Dodge, Mower, Olmsted and Fillmore. A winter storm watch is in effect to the east of that area and into Wisconsin. Several counties in Iowa also are in a blizzard watch. The region extends from the Des Moines up to Mason City, Waterloo, Fort Dodge and Decorah. It includes Winnebago and Worth counties. The watch is for the same time span.
The possible blizzard is expected to bring heavy snow, sleet and strong winds Thursday and into the evening. Totals by Friday morning could range from 6 to 10 inches in some areas.
Northwest winds are forecast to increase to 25 to 35 mph with gusts of 40 mph Thursday afternoon through Friday morning.
Whiteout conditions are expected to make travel dangerous.
Gunnar
4 comments:
Glad you're still around. Driving sucks sometimes. Had a close call coming back from Big Bend. Almost went into the island because of a swerving 18-wheeler as I was passing.
Sorry about the photos. I have seemed to have lost an entire camera. My new Canon SD1400 is missing...maybe stolen at work. It was my bicycling camera.
Scary stuff. I have visions of things like this every time I'm towing the boat trailer in the dark. Great that you're able to retell the story. Can the truck be fixed or do you have to walk home?
Just drove the truck to South Padre and back today. Everything is cosmetic.
Good to hear.
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