Some are storm-chasers, we were storm-chased

 We had to leave Taiwan early because of Super Typhoon, Regasa. You can see in the image below how we were just able to scoot ahead of where the storm was going. I sure looks like, if we had left at our original time, we would have been sailing right thru the eye of the storm. We are so appreciative of our Captain Val and crew that keep us safe. It did rock and roll a bit that night but nothing that felt dangerous. 

The next port was Subic Bay and it was pouring rain. I didn't go anywhere, Jim made a store run. We just hunkered down and enjoyed the ship. Then we left for Manila, where we were supposed to be for 2 days. We had a dermatologist appointment booked for the first day, so we got off the ship as soon as it was docked and caught an Uber, nope, no Uber here, it's called Grab. Same thing, worked great. Dr. Deo Wong was great. He froze off the couple of spots we were worried about and checked us all over. All good.

Manila itself was chock-block-full of people, scooters, tuk-tuks, sounds, and smells. It was a bit much for me. We walked around a couple of blocks after the dermatologist, then went back to the ship to stay. 

Lots of people were getting on and off the ship in Manila. Those that were schedule for the first day were fine, but the second day, not so much. Another storm kicked up and was headed towards Manila. The port authorities said, "Everybody Out." So we had to leave by 10pm or so.

We made it. All is well.

Hurricane Henri

We've been parked at our favorite driveway for a little over a week now. It's Located on LBI. (Long Beach Island) New Jersey. During that week it's been hot, cool, sunny, cloudy, and now it's a hurricane.

Just the outer bands of the tail end of a hurricane, but it's a pretty good storm. I'm lying here awake at 3 in the morning, listening to the rain on the roof of the van and feeling the wind rocking us just like if we were driving down the road. The occasional bolt of lightning lights up thru the Windows and I count the seconds before the thunder - CRACK - that one was instant. It was close!

In all the years we've been coming here in august (nearly 20) we've never had predictable weather. Unless you call a little bit of everything predictable. It can go from suffocating heat without a breath of air at noon, to windy and cool at 2, to perfectly gorgeous for the sunset at 8, to a hurricane at 3am.

I feel close to nature here. Maybe too close.😁

Morning after Henri - The ocean has calmed down but there's good surf!

Our spot

Rally’s Over

Our last day’s seminars were all about making your own websites and blogs.  We ended by teaching about Wordpress – this was a brand new seminar for us.  I think it went pretty well.  All our seminar handouts are on our website and easily found on the tutorial page for the topic you want.  All except Wordpress, because we don’t have any tutorials on it yet.  Here’s a link to the Wordpress seminar handout.  We make these publicly available to anyone who wants to read them, but they are for personal use only.  If you want to use them for any other purpose, please send us an email OK?

It SNOWED!

What was extra cool, was how we used our Droid phones for our internet connection.  See the article I wrote on RV.net for more details.

On Friday, we had a free day and had plans to take the famous Sandia Peak Tramway – the longest tramway in the world, going up 2.7 miles to the 10,378ft top.  BUT – they were closed due to weather :-(  No, it wasn’t snowing again.  This time it was too windy.

We planned to take the Tramway ride with our friends Phil and Tracey from TechnoRV.  We met them last summer at one rally, and then again at a few more.  They set up a very classy booth to sell all sorts of cool gadgets.  This year, they’re also selling our books and DVDs … we like that!  Luckily, they know the Albuquerque area better than we do and recommended a local winery – I think this may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship! :-)

We topped off the evening by going to dinner in ‘Old Town’ Albuquerque.  So, we got to see some sights after all!  Thanks Phil and Tracey!

Spam and Tornadoes

No, I'm not talking about getting lots of emails about Tornadoes, I'm talking about that tasty spiced ham canned meat made by Hormel right here in Austin, Minnesota!

When we saw there was a Spam Museum, we just had to go.

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

They proudly display what they call Monty Python's most inspired crowning achievement ...

My favorite part was learning about the Hormel Girls. They knew, back in the 30s that the best way to promote a product was thru community buzz! We had a delicious Spam burger at the restaurant across the street then came home to spend a quiet evening. It was quiet until the tornado warning siren went off! Then we enjoyed a party of sorts at the local storm shelter! Here's the radar as seen on Jim's cell phone:

From Geeks on Tour 200906 (June)

Three sirens and about 3 hours later, we came back to the RV and went to bed. The worst of the storm passed to the north of us - all is well here.

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Sideways Rain

If last night’s weather is at all typical of this region, it’s no wonder that Louisiana is called ‘America’s Wetland’!  We have only experienced a night like that when we stayed in the RV thru hurricane Katrina in Fort Lauderdale.  We’re in a town called Gonzales, just south of Baton Rouge.  We’re here to give our seminars at the Holiday Rambler rally. Here’s a map of where we are.

  

We had the kind of rain, wind, lightning and thunder that wakes you up … and keeps you up.  Jim even felt the need to get up and look around – he found that the sideways rain hitting the coach found some places to get in.  There was a puddle on the floor by his desk and water dripping from the light fixtures above.  yuk.

He check the weather alert service on his cell phone and read that our area had over 1,000 lightning strikes within the last 5 minutes!  The thunder made us hug each other and say ‘I love you’ … just in case that wasn’t thunder but the sound of an oncoming tornado.

whew … all is quiet this morning.