Thursday, April 30, 2009

Smith Center, KS to North Platte, NE

The weather alarm went off around 2:30 a.m. and again at 3:30 a.m. advising that severe thunderstorms were coming - 60 mile an hour winds, hail, lightning, thunder, and heavy rain. It was very still and then around 5:30 a.m., the wind picked up and rocked us back and forth for quite a while. The wind sounded like a train. Soon the lightning and thunder started then the rain and hail. It was a wild ride and light show for about 20 minutes. We will be glad to get out of Kansas.

The six of us went to breakfast for the last time. Dick and Phyllis were leaving their rig at the factory to be worked on while they drove up to South Dakota to renew their drivers licenses and then swing through Omaha for a See's meeting Saturday with Warren Buffett as speaker (Buffet owns See's). Dick and Phyllis run a See's kiosk in Dallas in November and December and have done it for six years I believe. Their rig is suppose to be done on Friday and they will move back in to it on Sunday when they return to Smith Center. Ken and Kris are still waiting on the work on their rig to be finished. After seeing that the weather looked to be improving, John and I decided to head to North Platte, NE. Hugs and safe travel wishes were shared. A great group of people and we exchanged email address and phone numbers. We might be able to have our paths cross in Arizona over the winter.

It was an uneventful drive to North Platte other than having a headwind which sure doesn't help with the fuel consumption. We saw pheasants, turkeys, and a red tail hawk. After we got to the RV park, we gave Paul at Fort Welikit (our workkamper jobsite) a call to see when we could come in. Paul said we could come in at any time. He also said that almost all of the snow in Custer has melted (good, let's keep it that way) and that he had only four campers right now. The other maintenance person is there already. If we were to drive direct to Custer, it would be almost a 322 mile day. That is more miles than we normally like to travel. We think we will play it by ear and see how we feel when we get to Chadron, NE and then decide if we go on or not.

I got caught up on laundry and we settled in for a little TV. We are both tired what with our sleep interruption by the weather radio and the storm. I think it will be an early to bed night.

Can you believe this is the last day of April already? Where is the time going?

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