Red Sky continued...

The first thing I heard was one of the main poles of the fly (tent) crashing down and hitting the stove.  I jumped up and went outside of our teepee and saw the side curtains standing straight out from where they were clipped on to the top sheet.  Wow, we are going to have a problem, I thought.  I put the pole back up and tightened the guy ropes and by this time the wind had increased to the point that the center pole and the wagon pole had already blown down again.  I hollered:  “Skip, I need some help out here” (Glenn stayed tucked in with the covers pulled up over his head).  Skip was already on his way, and together we just grabbed a piece of the tarp to try and hold it down till maybe the wind would let up a little bit. No such luck! Skip was holding on to the canvas fly and the wind was lifting the whole tent up and him as we;; off the ground.  All the time we were hoping to come out of this storm without too much damage.  We were quite busy trying to keep our “little home” together as best as we could and managed to get off a few quick prayers in hopes of getting some divine intervention.  We think the "call" went through because the wind didn't get any worse.

We looked up about this time and could barely see the moon, but it was full and red. By this time the tables, empty pans, serapes (we were using them for tablecloths), paper towels, pan liners and anything else that was the least bit light, had already blown away. 

Side curtains gone along with other stuff

 We were trying to keep the big canvas fly from completely blowing away by keeping the ropes holding it down tight.  The quick consensus was to take down the side curtains so the wind could blow under unobstructed, all the while trying to keep the main poles tight.  We began to see where the canvas was torn and where the poles had been punching holes in the top.  The end of the fly by the wagon was pretty much shredded. 

 

Glenn & I slept in the teepee on the left, Skip in the green tent ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,and the John Deere Wagon and camp fly.

We had gotten up so quickly that we didn’t put on any clothes, just boots.  So all we had on was our long underwear which wasn’t stopping much of the north wind.  I guess we were operating on adrenaline because it was probably two hours later when we finally got cold.  We fought the wind till around 3:30 or 4 am, when we decided it didn’t matter what we did, the wind was gong to do whatever it wanted to with our camp, regardless of our efforts.  We finally went to the “remuda” which is where we had our 300 horses and got inside.  We set there in a daze for what seemed like hours then it occurred to me that we had a heater in the pickup so  I asked Skip, “What do you think about a little heat”?  He said “That would be nice.” Then we cranked up the Silverado and finally got warm.

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We sat in the pickup for the remainder of the night which was a couple of hours. Some time during that couple of hours Glenn got cold enough to join us and get warm.  I don’t know how he did it, but somehow Skip curled up on the floor behind the front seat.  How, I don’t know, since the back was full of food preparation items.   The fly measures 16’x24’ and this is what it looked like as the sun started to lighten up the night sky.

The red sky can be seen on the horizon. This was early morning and the wind still howling.

 Rusty, the outfitter, has an awning for the hunters like you would put out to park a vehicle under.  It is anchored to the ground with long spikes in the ground, and the wind had pulled them out of the ground about 12” and the whole thing would blow up to the end of the spike and bang then fall down and do the same thing again and again.  The hunters were out by the big fire pit until around 11 last evening, and when they went to bed they built the fire up really big for some reason, I guess to keep the lions away from the camp.  It evidently worked because not one lion was sighted.  The problem was the wind was blowing our way, the high winds carrying large embers through what remained of our camp.  If there was anything out in that country to burn, it would have caught on fire that night.

Glenn holding down the burrito while the horseshoes and bean paddle hold down the tortillas.

Around 5:30 am Eddie Goynes came around and tapped on the window and said, “Damn, that was quite a wind.” I had to agree.  The wind was still blowing around 35 mph. We waited till daylight before we got out of the pickup and put some clothes on and tried to put what was left of the canvas back up and get a fire built.  We still need to feed the hunters.  We got the camp somewhat put back together and got breakfast ready by around 9 am.  The wind was still blowing hard enough that we had to put horseshoes on the tortillas to keep them from blowing away.  We were glad to get the huevos con chorizo burritos ready because we were pretty hungry ourselves.  The wind was still blowing hard enough that I didn’t even attempt to put my contact lenses in until sometime in the evening.  We were hoping the wind would lay down by the evening, so we could cook the rib eye steaks on the grill outside the tent. We managed to fix up some sandwiches for lunch around 2:00 pm with Mother Nature still huffing and puffing.   

The wind began to calm a little, and this was about the time that we prepared and served a mesquite smoked brisket BBQ dinner with all the trimmings.  I remember it well because I couldn’t see a thing because I still had not put in my contact lenses.  I guess everything went well because we heard no complaints.  We finally got to enjoy the evening after the wind quit around 5:30 pm.

That evening when we got ready to climb into our cots, it was like sleeping on the ground because there was so much dirt and dust in everything.  But it was still a wonderful feeling to finally get some sleep.

To be continued...