Wacky Weekend Weather

This is officially a sign that I am turning into my parents... a post about the weather!  Though I am guessing I am not alone in this department... while there are exceptions, I think one's fixation with The Weather Channel is correlated with age.

Anyhow, on Saturday we took a trip down to Tucson to take Todd's Dad out to lunch for his birthday... like my Mom, it was a the big 7-0.  Earlier in the week, he had called Todd to let him know that if the weather is bad that we should not come down.  Needless to say, we woke up to clear skies and abundant sunshine and were on the road shortly after 9am.

We took the Cooper.  With our Cooper-centric vacation rapidly approaching, I was torn between wanting to give it a good highway "test" run prior to our big road trip... but even well over a year since the accident, I still suffer from bouts of paranoia... nothing bad an happen to my car in the near future... as you can probably guess, it is a pretty important to have a Cooper at a huge gathering of MINIs! 

But no worries... the Cooper is just fine... but there were some dicey moments.

This is our stormy time of year... our monsoon (or haboob) season... bad weather crops up quickly and unpredictably.  While were in Tucson, the skies were fairly ominous... but the proverbial "bark with no bite"... and just a bit of rain as we hit I-10 for the late afternoon trip back home.

So long story short(er), it didn't take long before we hit into some heavier rain... again, not too bad if anything it was nice to see that my rain-sensitive automatic windshield wipers work!   But soon there is a huge plume of dust ahead and that's got me concerned.  The worst weather situation I faced in the Cooper was a quick duststorm on the way to our favorite Indian casino last summer... but fortunately, when we reach it, there is only minor reduced visibility.

10 minutes or so later, there is another cloud of dust ... and this one is bad.  It seems that in a blink of an eye, the dust is so bad that the cars in front us literally disappear into the storm. 

I immediately pull off the road and join a few other cars that have done the same... within minutes, more and more cars are pulling off... so many that I am concerned we are going to get hit by someone pulling off and not realizing home many of us there are... plus there are a bunch of cars merely on the shoulder (vs. all the way off the road)... plus my heart was in my stomach as cars (and 18-wheelers!) didn't slow down all that much heading into the dust cloud... plus pulled over cars not observing the recommend "lights off"  duststorm rule.... since moving cars would generally be following lights... on top of that, both cars continuing to drive on and those pulled have their hazard lights blinking... so very confusing (and pretty nerve wracking) with the low visibility and decreased depth perception. 

We were able to get back driving 20-25 minutes later, with visibility still not quite ideal, but it cleared up enough a few miles up the road... we hit into some heavy rain again, but "anything but dust" was good enough for me.    

Todd was hoping to mow the grass when we got home.  Despite all this bad weather, it appeared that as we approached the very southern edge of Phoenix Metro area was pretty clear.  Alas, we had a downpour the exit right before ours... so the window of opportunity to mow seemed to seemed to slam shut!

Or not... a mere five minute drive from that rain-soaked spot and back at our house, nary a drop of rain and the grass dry enough to mow. 

Go figure, but that's the hit-and-miss summertime weather here in Arizona!

Comments

[Scott-O-Rama]

I'm glad you two made it back okay. The most dangerous part about a haboob is driving in one.

If you two would have been killed, what would *I* have done? I don't like making new friends, so don't you two go anywhere. ;-)

[Charlene]

Hey ~ just wanted to say thanks so much for the blog! I just ordered my MINI two weekends ago and (as you can imagine) have been quite anxious for it to go into production. I did some googling and ran into your blog. Thank God! I would've never known about 1-866-ASK-MINI. I just called and found out that it's in production with no estimated completion date. HOORAY!!! and BOO!!! all at the same time. SO happy it's in production...but I wanna know WHEN it'll be departing lovely England.

Anywho, thanks again! Keep motorin'!

Charlene

[Jamoosh]

Howdy. Just stumbled upon your BLOG and now have it book marked! Expecting my new MINI in a week or so!

MOTOR on!