05-20 Bonus Report, Colorado Springs Hail storm

Colorado Springs, Co
Bonus Report
Week 20 of 52
Aug 20

RAIN, HAIL, SLEET! Oh my… After sending out the Week 20 report, as I had mentioned in the report, it was raining out. There was a small lull in the storm, so I got into the truck and headed back to the camper, 15 miles away. Before even getting out onto hwy 115, the rain started coming down in buckets. I saw my first flash flood ever! A Fire truck and police car were blocking a low lying road that was flooded over by a fast moving raging river from the rain. One car had to be abandoned in the middle of the flooded out roadway, it’s door left wide open, the driver scrambling to safety, as the flash flood roared through.

Then a minute later, the sky opened up even more and a torrent of rain and hail came down. Within minutes, the landscape turned white with hail and sleet. The roadway filled with white hail about 5 inches thick. Cars began pulling off to the sides of the road, there emergency flashers blinking red, as the rain came down in furious sheets of rain and hail. Bikers were rescued from the hail by motorists stopping to give them shelter.

I continued forward, following another car. Inching along. Worried that my awning had been shred to pieces. The hail continued coming down hard. I began to worry that the windshield wouldn’t hold up to the heavy pelting of hail it was receiving. The thunder and lighting were deafening.

Finally after about 10 miles of driving through all this, the sky began to clear, the rain began to let up and I had hope that the camper had not been damaged. I arrived at the campsite, hopped out of the truck to warn the staff of the storm possibly reaching this far south. They said it had never happened and not to worry. I hopped back into the truck, got to the campsite and began closing up the awning and stowing anything that could get damaged easily. The camper was safe.

Maybe they were right. The storm didn’t look like it was going to hit the campsite… I took another quick check around the camper and truck and noticed a couple of inches of hail in the back of the truck. The picture says it all.

That’s enough excitement for one day.

On another note, remember the report on my trip up to the mining town of Idaho Springs a couple of weeks ago. The next day there were two landslides just above the springs on hwy 90. It took them almost two weeks to clear up the tons of debris that blocked the main west to east hwy.

Could it be someone’s looking out for me? Hope so….

Ps, ps, I met the inventor Tom of the Cozy Time Campfire. That’s my gas outdoor fireplace. He had a special on the ceramic logs for the campfire so I picked one up.