Nov 29, 2015
Where to start with the rest of the story?
We were packing up because of Hurricane Sandra no matter what and we were going to move no matter what. It was obvious that we needed to be further away from the ocean. But would we move to the back of RV1 or possibly back to the entrance of “the road” or ? We decided to make a decision by 1PM last Friday. Sadly the expected downgrade of the storm never happened and it was still a Category 2 with the projected landfall now right in our area as a Tropical Storm but what if it landed as a Cat 1. Many told us not to worry, that for certain it would decrease soon. However this particular storm was never supposed to be a Cat 4 and it seemed to change course quite a bit. We along with Bob & Marjorie decided to not take the chance. It was a much easier decision to stay because we were very aware that it might be days, even a few weeks before we could travel ‘the road’ yet again. But as Sandra remained at a steady Cat 2 we left as you have already read. It was not an easy decision to make.
We didn’t travel far, in fact it was only 66 miles round trip but we were higher up and away from the ocean.
Sadly this great rest area was just past the first toll booth heading to Durango on 40D. It is a huge area on both sides of the road with an Oxxo store on each side. Why was it sad? It was a very high toll and we had to pay it in both directions even though we could see the toll booth down the road a bit. 755 pesos return as in $61.00CAD but well worth the price for safety.
We set up our Shaw satellite dish and the Krulls’ set up the BBQ. We dined on fresh caught tuna. But before dinner we enjoyed an interesting visit with Hector who was driving by and stopped to check out our Canadian plates. He was on his way to the Mazatlan airport heading to Canada where it turns out that he runs a large business out of Calgary. Most interesting fellow. He promised to come visit us here on the Isla once he was back in Mexico.
Thanks to Bob’s ATT hot spot device we were able to stay in touch with the que pasa of what was happening as well as allowing me to send out that post. What a time for my device to be locked 👿 I am in the process of ordering a new one but we sure felt helpless. Can you imagine fleeing a hurricane but not being able to find out what the latest details were?
I was ready to camp out for at least a week if we had to or even longer. However the next morning we were able to determine that at the last moment the storm had once again veered North of Mazatlan and not much rain had fallen. However there was a forecast for 66mm to start falling about 10AM Saturday morning. So we quickly had a meeting of minds and decided to take a chance on the road and head back ASAP as once 66mm of rain fell, the road would be shut down. I also called the park manager to recheck our info and he advised that it was cloudy but no rain yet. So off we went. Thank goodness we were only 33 miles away.
More rain had fallen than we had been led to believe. Marjorie drove ahead in their car to check things out while Bob followed in the RV. We followed with our car in tow. Frankly I was very concerned at times.
The first two miles were the worst and thank goodness that that section had been graded just 24 hours before we left.
As I recall the road in only took 40 minutes which is one of our best times ever. So even in Hurricane conditions ‘the road’ is good. Sadly our site which apparently is at the lowest end of the park was under about 3 inches of water. We had expected that so were not upset and had planned to park at another site until ours dried out.
Dirty, dirty, dirty road! We knew we had to clean this stuff or it would dry into cement. Fortunately we carry a small power washer with us.
A dirty job but yet it had to be done. It really seemed like all we have been doing is work since we arrived Nov. 15th.
Fortunately Ismael was there to help with the 3 hour power wash and then cleaning of both vehicles. He is such a happy guy. He told us that he had been worried about us when we left. We in turn were worried about his home flooding.
So we sat in site #3, our first site in RV1 and watched and hoped that our water would disappear.
It was a cloudy day and we had small rain showers from time to time. The forecast showed 66 mm down to 23mm and up to 33mm and down to 12 mm and in the end we had less than 4 mm of precipitation. Great news for 3 sets of friends arriving here in a few days time.
Went for a walk and we were surprised to see so little debris left by the churning ocean, it must have been all pulled back out. This photo is of RV2 where they all moved to the back row after a few waves came over their wall with lots of debris. In this photo a few of the RV’s are returning to their beach front sites.
Caeli gets excited around horses.
Gee what should I do? Should I chase it or…
So you are now caught up to this morning when an entire new episode began. Enough to say that I hit a new high on my Fitbit. 8:30PM and time to make us some dinner. It was a long day. Stay tuned……
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All I can say is I’m really sorry you had such a terrible weekend. Hopefully, your site will dry out soon and you can get really settled in and relax!
What an adventure (of sorts)….Thank goodness you are feeling so much better this season.
very cute picture of Caeli with the horses.
Nice that you got out and back again and all is safe.
Soon it will dry up and you will be back to normal.
Now hopefully you can settle in for the winter and have some time to NOT work.
Wow what an ordeal! I think that I might have wanted to move inland as well, you can never tell what is going happen with a storm like that so it is better to play it safe. Glad that the hurricane never can to be though and that everyone and everything made out all right.
Ruth
It looks like everyone made the right decision. All this will make for great happy hour stories and tales of what was to happen and what did happen. Best of all, you were with friends and made some new ones along the way. Sounds like rving to me!