It didn't blow me away.....

6:39 am - Saturday - June 6th - The Big Eddie, ID - 65° F, 35% humidity, wind 19 mph out of the south by southeast.......partly cloudy with very windy conditions  all night, and today so far......forecast high is 67° F.  Thunderstorms later today, with more rain Sunday, Monday and Tuesday....time to roll our wheels!

And the winds blew.....and blew.....and blew.....pretty much all day Friday the winds blew.  With those prevailing conditions it was easy to focus on beginning to put stuff away in preparation for our reluctant departure Saturday from The Big Eddie.  We have a number of increasingly inclement weather days fast approaching and it is time to head for the comfort of hookups while we ride them out.

My friend Claude installed a household fridge in his 1984.5 Bluebird Wanderlodge when his Dometic absorption fridge died a while back, so he needs to deliver AC power to it on a regular basis to keep the temp down around 40° F.  To do this he has been running a 2500 watt Yamaha generator, and even his onboard diesel genset every few hours to keep it it cool.  I suggested to him that he find a way to deliver AC to the fridge via his 1750 watt inverter continuously during the day when he has plenty of sunlight flowing through his 680 watts of solar panels to keep his batteries from being depleted in the effort.  He had been told by the guys at AM Solar that his inverter could not handle the power needed by the very small household fridge, but that did not seem right to me, so we ran an extension cord from the inverter to the fridge, and it worked just fine.  The fridge draws about 6.5 amps when it runs, but it only runs 20-30 minutes out of each hour cycling on and off every 20 minutes, or so.....problem solved.  

The rest of the day was spent reading, and napping....not much else to do with the strong winds blowing out of the southeast.  Around 8:30 pm the winds abated, and I lit a fire in the portable firepit.  We had some trash to burn, some cardboard boxes I had broken down, and some wood so we made an evening of it.....

 

....eventually the fire came up to 'operating temperature', and the trash/cardboard was consumed pretty quickly......

.....around 10:30 pm we called it quits for the night as the wind was begining to make a comeback.....

......storm clouds moving arriving via the wind obscured what was sure to be an interesting moonrise.....

.....we'll be on the road by 9 am Saturday heading toward Island Park, and Henry's Lake State Park hoping we can snag a couple of  'first come/first served' sites.

Thanks for stopping by!

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The tribe.....

7:40 am - Friday - June 5th - The Big Eddie, ID - 53° F, 70% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the east.......partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 81° F.....the view this morning.....↴

A lot of people came in yesterday afternoon and evening

I, apparently, was not in a picture taking mood Thursday.  The only picture I took all day long was as we were exiting Hacienda Cuajimalpa from a wonderful, amazing Mexican dinner.....TLE can never pass up a ride on a coin operated horse.....but I get ahead of myself.....

.....being way out in the boondocks has its advantages. Since February 4th we have been living in either very remote areas, or in extremely rural areas.  As a result we have spent little, or no time in densely populated cities, which has kept us from acquiring the Wuhan Flu (COVID-19 for the politically correct among us).  When we finally began to realize we had more chance of being struck by lightning than getting the flu we stopped wearing our masks, with the lone exceptions of getting a haircut in Durango, or ordering our lunch in Telluride.  We now have 6 people in nomadic tribe, and we are all in the age group that is at risk, but we continue to be asymptomatic.  

The other advantage to this lifestyle is we are so far from large cities that ANTIFA has not felt compelled to come to our neighborhood.....not many TV cameras here to promote their antifascist fascist ways of destruction and mayhem. On a side note, it is a little hilarious that a group which claims to be antifascist uses fascist tactics to make their point......kind of Orwellian, no?  Anyway, life goes on in rural America with barely a hiccup.  It has become quite apparent to me over these past few months that living in urban America is coming with a higher, and higher cost.  I continue to wonder if we will begin to see another great American migration....this time out of urban America to rural America.  I thank God everyday that I have the ability to be mobile and live where I wish....often for free as we are doing right now.

Back to the here and now......Thursday was marked by blustery winds all day long....blustery enough to keep TLE and I inside reading most of the day.  The Teton River is predicted to rise another foot in the next 36 hours so we are keeping an eye on that.  Mr. Jello has added another wrinkle to our plans to reside here on The Big Eddie for 10 days with a weather forecast showing 80% chance of rain beginning Sunday for three consecutive days....there is no way we want to be here in a flood zone with three days of rain on the way, so we will be hauling the proverbial anchor Saturday morning and heading for higher ground....probably 80 miles north to Henry's Lake.

Around 6 pm our nomadic tribe of 6 headed into Driggs for dinner at the aforementioned Mexican restaurant.  Glenn and Laureen will be leaving our tribe to begin a slow trek back to Austin, TX  in about a week, so they wanted to treat us to dinner.  They will be heading up to Henry's Lake a day ahead of the rest of us to stage for a few trips into Yellowstone NP.  Like the El Michoacan restaurant in Ramona, CA, Hacienda Cuajimalpa is also named for a region in Mexico....it is one of the 16 boroughs of Mexico City.  I ordered their Hacienda Plate which comes with cream filled, bacon wrapped jalapeño poppers, fried shrimp, and thinly sliced skirt steak.....amazing...just amazing.  Everyone loved their dishes, and being able to 'dine in' was the cherry on top of the sundae for all of us.  Thank you Glenn and Laureen for your generosity, and for picking the perfect restaurant! By the by....Yelp gives them 4 stars on 59 reviews.

We were home a little before 8:30 pm, and by 9 pm we had another fire going (the wind had finally abated), and we sat out until after 11 pm talking about cabbages and kings.  Sitting around a campfire is one of my great pleasures in life.  There is some unquantifiable element about sitting across a campfire from people you know and respect, no matter their age.....age just seems irrelevant around a fire....I don't know why.  Everyone just feels like a peer.  I find people to be at their utmost transparent selves around a fire.

Well, that's my 2¢, and I'm sticking to it.....thank you so much for taking the time to stop by today!

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"God willing, and the river don't rise......"

7:14 am - Thursday - June 4th - The Big Eddie, ID - 55° F, 63% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the south by southeast......heavy cloud cover today with a forecast high of 71° F.....the view this morning.....↴

 A new resident this morning....

Not much to report from paradise on Wednesday.  We spent the day pulling out more stuff until it became obvious about mid afternoon that it was going to rain, and rain hard.  TLE and I had to rush to stow the patio awning, and put away our lido deck furniture getting it done just before the torrential rains struck.....

......the rain was accompanied by lightning and thunder, and blotted out the Grand Tetons for a period of time......

.....within an hour the storm cell had passed, and the Grand Tetons had returned to our view in all their glory.....

.....as things dried out we decided we could eat a communal dinner outside.  On this evening Gail provided the entree (enchiladas), plus chips, salsa, and a salad......the enchiladas were excellent!  Everyone brought their own beverages.  Considering how hard it rained, things had dried out sufficiently by dinner time, and the evening air was pleasant enough that we lingered for quite a while talking, and laughing.  

It appears to me that the mountains to our east have a new coating of snow upon them.....

.....just before the downpour Claude decided to turn his Wanderlodge around so the patio would be facing the Teton's....he barely finished leveling and covering his outdoor stuff with a tarp with the sky fell......

....we were treated to a pleasant, if not spectacular sunset, and then it was time to retire inside for the evening.....

......TLE and I read until sometime after 10 pm before heading off to dreamland.

One issue we are paying very close attention to here at the Big Eddie is the level of the Teton River which surrounds us on three sides.....the area between the river and where I am standing (now flooded) was totally dry when we arrived Monday afternoon.  Since then it has flooded (not from the rain).....

 The Teton River in the background

.....and now we are seeing it on our side of the road (below).....that is cause for concern.....

....so we are going to be ready to leave if the need arises.....stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!