April 2, 2012
Slept in,
listening to the howling wind. Throughout the night and most of
today the sound in my apartment is like being under a freeway
overpass. Fantastic. After getting up I opened the door to feel the wind,
but...um, well, the air current sucked the door closed behind me,
locking me out. This has happened once before, so I've been keeping
the back window unlocked so I would be able to climb back in. I ran
around the building in my bare feet and t-shirt (it was only in the
high 30s with that fierce, 50 mph wind) only to discover that the
window won't open from the outside. Huh. Other windows were locked.
A quick look at the parking lot revealed that Steven might be
around, so I ran over to his place and he let me use his phone to
call for help. Got back in, got breakfast and organized some things.
It is so gloomy out that there is little natural light for painting,
and the threat of rain makes long hikes ill advised. It's a good day
for catching up on the mundane, so I went to Wall for groceries with
Steven. I drove us there, and wow what a wind. It was like surfing down the freeway. Passing a
livestock truck with irregular wind gusts coming through the
perforations in its side felt like fishtailing on ice. Crazy. Lots
of blowing dust and debris in the air, some places had vertical
shafts of dust storm. Sadly, neither of us brought a camera along to
capture that. I heard that a semi was blown over on I-90 between here and Rapid City today. 60+ mph winds. It kept up all day until just a few hours ago. Had an afternoon meeting with park staff about future
youth camp ideas; it would be wonderful to come back to
help out for some of them. Worked more on the painting of sage creek
despite the poor light, then Ed came by and Steven joined later. We
made some of the cinnamon rolls left behind by the Calhouners and
shared some laughs. Yummy nighttime junk food treat. Tomorrow's
weather looks fantastic again, and I'm still debating what I want to
do with the day. So many options.