Thursday, December 23, 2010

Rain and some Wind.

It was supposed to be a rainy day, and it did look all overcast this morning, but it only sprinkled a little bit.  That's usually what a rain storm that is forecast here in the valley becomes.  A sprinkle event.  But just like clock work, the rains brought the wind and frontal passage.

It began to whip the awning, and before the auto retractor could get it done, I pushed the button.  In the travel trailer days, it would have been manually release the arms and fold up the sliders.  After releasing the lock, it was carefully allow the roll to retract as it rolled up the strap inside the fabric.  Seems like I always managed to let it slip about two thirds the way up, and it would bang home against the side of the trailer.  Then it would take physical shoving to get the arms to line up and retract inside of each other.

On the travel trailer, I used some manual straps to keep the awning folded while we were moving.  I have read several blog stories about awnings that began to unroll while moving down the road.  Al of the Bayfield bunch comes to mind immediately!

But the most horrendous story belongs to JB and Brenda about the day that the wind up in Montana blew the entire roof loose on their motorhome.  I don't know how to link to that story, or I would.  Basically they had the entire roof come loose from the walls.  Perhaps they can leave a link to the story in a comment, since I think they read this most days.

Since it was cloudy and then sunny and alternating between cold and windy and then really nice, we just hung out here at the coach all day.  I left on errands and we walked around the park between the rains.

But tonight, it began to rain for real.  Coming down in torrents, but the wind had settled down.  Loyce took Biscuit out to go potty, so for a while I put out the awning again.  Bad choice, as the wind just came up as I was writing this little piece and about blew it over the coach.  It is supposed to auto retract, but it never does when you need it most!  I was pushing the button, but it didn't want to roll up in the wind.  I guess the motor isn't strong enough to overcome the gusts.

It is finally retracted, but it is dark, so I can't see if it is rolled up correctly, and the rain is in torrents again.  I even had to put the bat wing TV antenna down, as the wind was blowing that all around too.

But we have had no where near the amount of wind and rain that is over in the Colorado River area and from there on into California.  This is supposed to keep up for most of the night.  Slide toppers are a flappin, but we haven't put the slides in yet.  That may be next!

Retired Rod

4 comments:

  1. It is always touch & go with awnings it seems. The winds here in the southwest come with no warning whatsoever & I would say our awning stays up the majority of the time we are here. I have safety ties on it as well & haven't even taken them off yet this trip. I'm wondering if there is a way you can crank in your awning manually if push comes to shove.

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  2. Yep, you are part of my morning read Rod and here is the link to our adventures.

    http://johnbrendasincredibleadventure.blogspot.com/2010/04/blast-from-past.html

    Batten down the hatches and keep your bad weather over there in Arizona at least till we head that direction after the New Year.

    Merry Christmas

    JB & Brenda

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  3. We had just the rubber part of our roof blown off in a wind-storm, and that was scary enough. I can't imagine what it would be like to have the whole roof come apart. We had a little rain yesterday too, very little.

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  4. Sure hope your awning is o.k. and not damaged. Those desert winds can go from a dead stop to hurricane force in just seconds some times. In Desert Hot Springs, we seldom ever bothered putting our awnings out. Mind you, they were the manual type. Now that we have auto-awnings, we'll see!

    You seem to be getting off much lighter than California as far as rain goes!

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