Winter is DONE!

It was only a few days ago I was driving Cyndee to the San Angelo airport for a trip to Georgia to see the kids.  It was a five hour drive through freezing rain that deposited a good four thousand pounds of ice on Big Gulp by the time we got to the airport.  An airport which was now closed due to planes sheathed in ice in quantities far greater than what was on Big Gulp.

Cyndee got her flight rebooked for the next day and we set out to find a hotel room for the night.  The weather was a little dicey for her departure when the time came and when it was all said and done there were delays and missed connections, but she made it and had great week with the kids.

Fortunately, her return flight the following Sunday was less eventful but it was still uncomfortably cold.  During the week while she was gone, I phoned in the weather from the basin weather station each morning and I was getting overnight lows in the teens almost every day.  Visitors to the basin was at an all-time low for our shift.  Didn't even break fifty one day.  Cyndee picked the perfect week to go on her trip.

But Cyndee had no more than got back to Big Bend and somebody flipped the weather switch.  We went from running space heaters all day and just barely keeping the rig warm to running both A/C's and barely keeping the inside temperature under 80.  The orientation of our rig on its pad has the full length of the passenger side facing west south-west.  From about noon till sundown the sun hits all 37 feet full-on and the solar gain is pretty significant.  We've tried putting the awning out to throw a little shade but the wind is just too much.

The weather is not the only thing that changes quick around here.  The bluebonnets have wasted no time in taking advantage of the skip from winter to summer.  Bluebonnets prefer "disturbed" ground so nothing out in the desert, yet, but the roadsides are pretty well lined with them.

With our wet winter the long-time residents are predicting an unusual spring bloom.  The bluebonnets seem to be holding up their end, we'll wait a little while and see if the cactus and yucca come through.