Friday, May 2nd

We have had our first initiation to Midwest blizzard conditions! Last night we watched the weather forecast and expected to see some rain turning to snow later in the evening. When we went to bed, we were experiencing rain and lots of wind. As the hours passed into early Friday morning, the rain changed to snow and was being driven by 40-50 MPH winds. At 2AM I was awakened when the electricity went out. We had a series of outages for about 30 minutes until the power finally went out and stayed out. I decided not to worry about the loss of electricity and started the generator. I’ve been a pretty frugal person when it comes to burning propane for the furnace or diesel fuel for the generator. However, it was cold and I needed the power for my CPAP machine.

Nancy was really getting hinky about the wind rocking the coach. At gusts of 40-50 MPH, this coach rocks quite a bit. She was not relaxing and was walking between the head of the bed and somewhere close to me where she could push right in and feel secure. By 3AM I couldn’t see out any of the windows due to the horizontal snowfall we were experiencing. The snow was packing on the windows and beginning to stick to the ground. The wind was causing the snow to drift resulting in a pile of snow that was almost 3’ high outside the passenger’s side of the coach.

We managed to get some sleep the remainder of the night and I was up by 6AM. I went ahead and dressed in thermals and two sweat suits with a hooded jacket, knit cap, and thermal waterproof gloves. I walked over to the Maintenance shed to see what I could do to help. Our Maintenance Supervisor brought a cooler with a dozen eggs, two loaves of bread, syrup and some deer sausage. He designated me the cook and to start preparing some breakfast for the guys that were working. I scrounged up an electric skillet and hot plate and started cooking. We had a terrific breakfast of sausage and French toast. While the rest of the guys started out to attempt to plow the snow off the roads, I got KP duty and cleaned up the dishes and the “kitchen”. The wind continued to blow the snow and the plowing efforts were almost fruitless. I remained in the shop to pump propane for the folks that were running low. Many of the trailers don’t have generators and were running low on their propane tanks. We had two trucks going to sites where people needed propane. They would get the tanks, bring them to the shop, and I would fill them before they were returned to the owner with full tanks. With the hooded jackets and sweatshirt I could fight the wind-blown snow and stay reasonably comfortable while I pumped the propane. That was my job for the remainder of the day - until about 4PM. Since we weren’t able to get any of the trashcans emptied today, I’ll be working on Saturday to get the trash completed.

As I’m typing this, the sun is beginning to set and some of the snow has melted on the surrounding hills and in the streets of our park. The temperature is supposed to get down to 22 degrees tonight with winds continuing in 30-40 MPH range. We are comfortable, warm, and secure in our coach. Nancy is amazed by the snow and we are glad this event will last only one day. The weather gurus are forecasting temperatures of 46 on Saturday and 59 on Sunday. This weather system will move on east and we’ll anticipate some great temperatures next week causing us to mow the watered grass.

A phone call from Vicki & Don Leith was a real shocker today. She phoned to tell us their brand, new house had been destroyed by the tornadoes that ripped through Arkansas. They lost the new house and their car, but the motor home survived with minor damage to one of the mirrors. They, however, survived without a scratch! The house is just a thing - their lives are much more important. We were saddened to hear their news and will think of them as they are going to have to start over again rebuilding their dream house.

Yes, South Dakota is a unique experience! We are having a ball and learning how lucky you SoCal folks are…