The Storm Has Passed

The worst of the storm was gone by the time we woke up yesterday morning, but heavy clouds hung overhead all day long, and it rained most of the day. Not a heavy rain like we had been experiencing, just showers. At least the wind was gone, and that alone was a blessing.

From the blogs I’ve read and the e-mails I received from our RVing friends who are in Quartzsite, it looks like everybody came through the bad weather okay, but they all agree that it is an experience they never want to repeat, and that they will remember for a long, long time.

My daughter called from Show Low to say she had about 30 inches of snow at her house, and it was still coming down hard. She said that a few miles further up the mountain, in Pinetop-Lakeside, the snow accumulation was estimated to be four to five feet high by the time the storm moves out. News reports later in the day said that the roof of the Pinetop fire department building had collapsed under the weight of the snow. In Flagstaff, the roofs at the giant Bookman’s Bookstore and neighboring fabric store, as well as several other businesses, had  had also caved in.

A little after noon, Terry’s cousin Carolyn Henley and her husband Mel stopped over for a visit. Mel and Carolyn have been fulltiming for several months now, and it was interesting to hear about their transition to their new lifestyle, and the places they have visited. Whenever we talk to newbie RVers, it reminds us of our first months on the road, with so much to learn, and guess what? We’re still learning!

For 35 years or more, Miss Terry has had a big, bulky Pfaff sewing machine, and it gave her very good service. But eventually the old machine wore out, and when we took it into a shop for a tune-up and adjustment a while back, they told Terry it needed some parts that were no longer available, and they couldn’t guarantee that it would last much longer.

Since then, Terry has talked about getting a new sewing machine, but she had not seen anything that really appealed to her. The other day, while out with her sister Dani, Terry came across the Bernina Bernette line of machines, and decided that she liked the Model 66.

Now, I’m always finding some new toy that I just have to have, but it’s very seldom that Terry says she wants anything, so when she does, I try to make it happen. The original store, where she had seen a different model, did not have the machine Terry wanted, so while she was busy doing something else, I snuck around and made some calls and found one at a quilting shop in Tempe.

After Mel and Carolyn left, we drove to Tempe and bought the Bernina, and Terry is looking forward to getting familiar with it. In fact, the shop even has a day long class to teach customers how to use all of the features on their new sewing machines. I can see why, it’s got almost as many bells and whistles as the dashboard of our Winnebago!

We were supposed to have dinner with Terry’s sister Lisa and her husband Jim, and by the time we got finished at the quilt shop, we had about twenty minutes to get across town. Terry called Lisa to tell her we’d be a few minutes late, but we hoped it wouldn’t be long. When we got on the Superstition Freeway (U.S. Highway 60), it looked like traffic was going to be bad, but I managed to get across to the car pool lane, and we zipped across town with no delays, arriving at the restaurant only ten minutes late.

We never get to spend enough time with Jim and Lisa, and they are a fun couple that we always enjoy. Dinner was delicious, and afterwards we went back to their house to continue our conversation for an hour or so before we headed back home.   

By then I was happy to just log onto the internet, check my e-mail, and read a few of my favorite blogs. But Terry never slows down, and before long she was baking some wonderful peanut butter cookies. The perfect dessert after our dinner out!

Thought For The Day – Enthusiasm is contagious. You can start an epidemic.

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