Saturday, January 16, 2010

Living in Tana, at Mother Nature's Mercy

When you live in a RV, full time, long time, part time, or even vacation time, the current weather conditions ARE EVERYTHING!  It is a bit different than living in a stick built. The walls are thin so it almost seems you are outside when you are in.  For many RVers, the outdoors is just an extension of our rig.  The area just outside your door becomes your second living area, picnic tables, the grill, chairs to read in, flags and other varieties of "yard  junk decorations", potted plants to enhance your living area, some even put up screen type affairs to afford a little privacy as well as some sun shade.

So, Mother Nature has a HUGE effect on your life.  If it is hot, we go swimming or boating or run the air conditioners.  If it is cold, we bundle up and figure extra propane bills into our budget.  When it rains, we curl up on the couch with a good book, nap, or surf the net.

But, when Mother Nature gets in a snit and throws extremes at ya, well, you cope, but of course, cause as RVers that is what we do, cope.  But we also, well, tend to complain, errrr, talk about it a lot! 

It is winter, and every locale gets some winter weather.  Yep, it has been coolish here, okkkk, 17 degrees wind chill is a bit more than cool, but I don't want to sound as if I am whining.  I'm not, just stating the facts!  Man and I ran through two 30 pound propane tanks in several weeks.  On windy nights, we wore hoodies to bed and pulled those hoods up over our heads, felt pretty good too! 

Here in Gulf Shores, aside from the cold weather, the real weather story has been the rain.  Buckets and buckets of rain since about December 1st.  Not to quibble over details, so, lets just say, it rained here about 15 inches in December give or take.  Came close to setting a record.  The ground is saturated, soggy, slurpy.

Since the 1st of January we have had some rain, but it actually was drying up, a little.  Till last night.  It rained, the wind blew, Tana actually rocked a bit from the gusts, then it rained and blew some more.  Both Man and I lost some sleep, so, we slept in this AM.  At 9:30 it was still raining, raining, raining.  I got the trusty Cannon Power Shot out and took some photos. 

Here is Man & Carol's personal stream, it is about 2.5 inches deep.


Looking in the other direction, we have our personal lake.  You can tell that we are very glad to be parked on a paved site.


A glance out the back window, and yepper, MORE water. At the top of this photo is a large blue area,
that is one of the campground ponds. We have discovered that the pond has an overflow mechanism,
(other wise known as a drainage ditch) water is directed under the road, through the campsite next to us, under the road again, all the way to the opposite side of the campground. I shudder to think what our campsite would be like without the drainage system.  Ewww!


Now, if it were just Man and Moi, well, we would not wander out into Mother Nature's Sobbing Session--more like wailing session, geesh that gal can cry!  However, the yorks need their potty breaks (note to Carol, if you ever get another puppy, PAPER TRAIN IT!!)  So, I am forced out into the deluge, and I return with wet furr kids.  Man helps out by towel drying them.  Man, towel drying the kids, Cappy is top left, Gallagher, is bottom left, Tilly on the right.

 

I have been joking around for weeks, saying I was shopping for pontoons for Tana, I finally followed through.



OK, so, I am a lousy digital editor, forgive my poor attempts and lame humor, I am waterlogged!


Copyright 2010, CABS for Reflections From the Fence.

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3 comments:

Ron and Thelma said...

Hey Carol Get rid of that liquid sunshine before we get there. I think we are going to stay where you are if they have room. Don't know for sure when we will get there. After we hit warmer temps we will take our time. Se ya

Anne Percival Kruszka said...

We're expecting an inch of rain tonight - and maybe a quarter inch more tomorrow!

Nita said...

Things have got to get better! You are right, though, it makes such a huge difference when living in such a small space! Hope weather starts to improve. It's getting much better here, finally!

Cute pic of Man with the yorkies!