Yesterday the weather guessers had it right. As predicted, after a short pause in the rainfall, we were slammed by thunderstorms. The precipitation fell in short, heavy bursts, then would taper off. At times, the sun broke through the clouds. At one point, I had the door open and let some warm, fresh air in through the screen door. That didn’t last long though.

Donna’s friend, Julia, picked her up around 1:30pm and they went to a Cabi clothing party in Fountain Hills. While she was out, I thought it would be a good time to practice guitar. I plugged in my guitar amp stand next to the co-pilot’s seat and got my Gibson ES-339 out. I played for about an hour and had fun rocking out in the coach.

On their way back from the party, Donna and Julia stopped at the Fountain Hills bike shop. Donna picked up her race packet there. The packet included her race numbers to be displayed on her bike, helmet and jersey. It also had a bar glass stenciled with the race logo and a few small goodies.

After Donna returned, we saw a large storm cell to the north of us. I thought it might pass by without much effect as it seemed to be far enough away. I was wrong. We started experiencing high winds as the cell approached. Then we were blasted with intense rain fall. Sheets of big, heavy rain drops. I jinxed us when I said, “At least it’s not hail.” Within minutes, we had pea-sized hail drumming on the roof of our coach.

Large storm cell

The heavy rain from this cell caused water to puddle on top of the living room slide-out. Water puddled faster than it could drain. After a while, we had water intrusion through the slide seal near the microwave oven. I used the hydraulic jacks to lower the left side as well as the rear of the coach. This allowed the water to run off of the top of the slide. I left the coach tilted overnight and leveled it this morning.

After each thunder storm passed by, there would be areas of flooding. Our site had a large puddle under the coach.

Rain water puddling in our site

The ground would drain quickly though between bouts of rain.

The puddle didn’t last long once the rain stopped

Storm cells continued to pass through the area. Around 8:30pm, Donna received a call from her training partner alerting her to the email message she just received from the race organizers. They had canceled the race. She was disappointed, but felt some relief at the same time. She wasn’t looking forward to rising from bed at dark-thirty to ride to the race start area on a cold, wet morning. Also, parts of the road were likely to be flooded in the morning and could have sand and debris in places.

Donna is planning to ride the road course later today, once it warms up. The forecast is calling for temperatures to reach the upper 60s today. I’ll start organizing the trailer in preparation for tomorrow’s move back to Mesa. Tomorrow will be a busy move day, so I don’t think I’ll post again until Tuesday.

Donna signed up for another race in Mesa on April 5th. I guess we’ll extend our stay there.