Georgette

Talk about never knowing what a day will bring!!!!....

For the past 24 hours we have been experiencing different levels of Tropical Storm Georgette. This came as a surprise since we have no TV so we got no warning.

FUN!!...my first Tropical Storm!! I am guessing our house “Arriba” is not as happy as I am. We have no windows or doors there yet and the floors are 99% in…the painting is 99% complete and now the whole thing is being battered by winds and rain. Looking out across our land down here I see various sized lakes all over the place. A few months ago we had a large portion of the land in front of our bodega graded and filled with absorbent soil in preparation for storms like this. I am here to tell you clearly we did not do enough grading or bring in enough absorbent soil! Our land and the surrounding areas are swimming in water oozing with mud.

I even got to drive in a tropical storm as earlier today I had to drive to Todos Santos to cover some checks we wrote over the weekend. I needed to exchange USD for pesos. Our money flows from Canadian dollars to USD into pesos….we are often on the loosing end of the exchange rates, but that is a story for another blog. Anyway, for this reason we play the “exchange” game and try to move money when it is the most beneficial for us.

There is construction from here to Todos Santos. Todos Santos is about 20 km or 12 miles from us. They are making a 4 lane highway all the way from Todos Santos to Cabo and we sit on this path. About 80% of this road is now torn up…most of it still unpaved. The ride there, with the rains and the mess took over ½ hour. I am coming back and the rain had taken a short repreive. It is humid so I roll down both my windows. I am driving along in a line of about 10 cars. Everyone is going so slowly. The road is rutted, muddy and dangerous. All of a sudden some guy who must have been VERY important decided to pass all of us. He races be splaying mud and water the whole way. When I realize what is happening the whole side of the truck had already been totally covered in mud. The mud was thrown against the truck, through the truck and out the passenger side window. Everything in between was covered in mud. The steering wheel, the car seats, the dash board, my head, hair, face, my neck, my shirt, my purse, phone..even my bra got mud on it! It was crazy! Maurice could not quite figure out what had happened to me when I got home and climbed down out of the truck!

Now we are inside watching and listening to the storm. It comes in waves. You can hear it beating on our metal roof. There are gusts of wind we feel through the open windows as the storm moves from south to north. Our windows are on the east and west so we can have them open. We are safe in our concrete block building. Retro is on the porch in his cage, climbing deeper into the corners of his cage, but seemingly fine, or we think he would be at the door wanting to come in.

For my first tropical storm, Maurice has lived through them before when he was here alone, I have to say I am enjoying the freshness in the air, the change from hot sun and dry desert. You can almost see things starting to bloom. Tomorrow there will be buds beginning to grow on the cactus. Everything will start to come back to life...a life that only rains like this can provide. All things dormant will begin to stretch, yawn, and wake themselves up; welcoming the change. After a while the sun will start to burn them back into dormancy where they will wait...just like I will...for our next storm.