Badlands Residency Day 12

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.