At the beginning of June, JoAnne and I had to make the long, arduous journey across 4000 miles.  Ok, well, 1980 miles to Colorado and back again to North Carolina.

We had the annual doctor’s appointments to go do once again, post chemo/cancer checkups for her, and a quick heart check up for me.

We arrived on Monday evening, 11 June at my youngest son’s house.  We were exhausted after stopping in Kentucky to hit a family reunion, and then in Missouri to spend the night with some friends before traveling on to Colorado.

The next morning we made it downtown to the hospital to do blood work for JoAnne.  We had a bunch of appointments scheduled throughout the week.  But, Tuesday night would become “Early Wednesday Morning of the Storm from Hell”.

At about 2:00 AM on Wednesday, the sky opened up.  It began to rain.  Then small hail fell.  When the first large piece of hail hit the roof, I thought we were being bombed.   Indeed, we were.  By the sky.

Hail the size of softballs began to pelt the neighborhood.  I hear my son yell from his room and made my way there, amid the explosive sounds of massive chunks of ice hitting the front and roof of the house.  His large windows in his bedroom were gone, rain and hail pouring into the broken panes.  We grabbed some tarps to throw over the inside to help prevent too much more damage and I managed to get JoAnne out of the room as our windows shattered.

Going down stairs and outside on the protected front porch I observed total chaos.  Car and trucks in the area were being smashed to pieces by the hail.  Trees (new neighborhood, so very small ones) were being stripped of leaves and then of their branches.  The front yard was covered in hail, some of it the size of tennis balls, all the way up to softball sized hail.

We were up until nearly four in the morning waiting for the storm, rain and wind to subside.  I don’t think there were reported tornadoes but the cell certainly was powerful enough to have dropped one.  I checked as best I could in the darkness for wall clouds, funnels, and so on without venturing out and getting killed by hail.

I watched as the rear window on our car was hit directly with a large hailstone, which at first I thought exploded.  Later when the hail ceased, I went out to check the damage and it had been the window shattering into a million tiny pieces.  The glass was scattered from the car to the street and sidewalks.  There was glass in the front seats.  It had literally exploded.

Since we only had liability on the vehicle, insurance wouldn’t even look at it.  I ended up buying a car from my son (which was a spare after he’d purchased a new one) and gave the other to my daughter (who had the time and ability to work on replacing the damaged windows, mirrors and other parts that were badly messed up).

Fortunately, my son’s vehicles were all in the garage.  Every, single car that was sitting outside suffered minor to severe damage, some vehicles completely totaled.   The fences in back looked like someone had shot holes through it was shot gun slugs.  Roofs on neighboring homes had been punctured all the way into the ceilings down below, the hail was hitting so hard!

To my knowledge no one was injured, but I’m pretty certain some cows out around the area probably were killed that night.   I’m sure that animals suffered greatly out there.

We needed to borrow my son’s car the next day to get to the rest of the appointments, and I ended up simply buying the car from him to fulfill our schedule over the next two weeks.  All-in-all, most things went well.

We did find that JoAnne’s CA-125, the blood work to check for tumors, had more than doubled, which gave us all a scare.  A CT scan was ordered and they found no sign of cancer.  However, the doctor wants up back in September.  There’s more to this story, but I’m not going to fill it in at present.  I will mention there are other things that can cause an elevation in the CA-125 numbers, and we believe at the moment that something did just that.  We plan to see some local doctors here in NC to have more tests performed to make the final determination about going back to Colorado in September.

I discovered I have a slight leak in my “New to me Heart Valve” that was put in in May 2015.  I wonder if they had a 10 year warranty program?  Probably not, so perhaps I can find something like “Leak Stop” I can drink…. perhaps more bacon?  I dunno.

On a better note, we managed to get back to North Carolina unscathed by any more freak storms, after stopping back in Missouri and spending several wonderful days with our friend Mike and Cindy.  We also stopped in Ashville and visited with a couple of friends there, did some beer tastings in some of the breweries and then finally headed home to Southport and our ship, Adventure.

Upon arrive, I checked our batteries, as I’d left them on the smart charger (the new one I put in after the fire) and they were in excellent shape, not over heated, had not lost much water from the cells, and the status was very good.  The boat however, needed a decent washing again.  Mold appears on the outside often.

I went back to work about the 9th of July at the marina here, and found I’d not forgotten anything I needed to remember…. except to get up for work in the mornings.  I wasn’t late, but might have been had I not had JoAnne wake me up to tell me my alarm was going off (for fifteen minutes).

Now, JoAnne has some appointments scheduled here to go in for a new check up locally, and we’re going to be making a decision about Colorado or Bahamas soon.

In the mean time, a few days ago, I managed to drop my phone into a sink, with water running.  It was a klutzy move on my part, as I was trying to grab a pair of sunglasses I’d dropped, fumbled those, and smacked the phone sideways and into the sink.  I didn’t catch either the glasses OR the phone.  DOH!

I immediately grabbed it out, shook the water away from the charging port and earphone jack and we removed the battery as quickly as possible.  Still, the phone’s mic and the Home button ceased functioning.  I opened it up and dried it (It wasn’t really damp inside anyway) and placed it, you guessed it, into a “bag of rice”, purported to help dry phones due to rice’s ability to absorb moisture.  I don’t really think it worked.  But the phone DID seem to work better the next day.

Yesterday, we drove to a place in Wilmington to have the phone repaired.  They ran it through a drying machine (for three hours) and apparently attempted to “repair” some of it. They got the Home button working, but broke the other two buttons.  The microphone is still dead.  And they supposedly backed up my data, but deleted all my pictures.  All 2000 of them, including the hail damage and my favorite images of JoAnne (Dummy me, I’d forgotten to back it up before I left!)

Grrr… Well, on the way back… the car started acting up.  We hit some major puddles on the way back and things got wet.  I suspect the electronics in the car (I’m really having issues with electronics and water, huh?) got wet and when we arrived here in Southport, to stop at a store, the car wouldn’t start back up.

It growled funny at us and eventually, after five or six attempts it started up.

However, there was another sound.  Coming from the air conditioner unit.  We believe the bearings on the device are shot.  We’re supposed to drive to Myrtle Beach today for a concert, but apparently, that’s a bad idea.  Instead we’re riding with friends and I’ll get parts on order for the car on Monday.

So the last two months have been “One thing or another”, as usual for the “Adventurers”.

One last thing before I go.

We have been discussing a “Watermaker” for the boat.  We’ve done the pros and cons, including the costs/return benefits and realize we probably wouldn’t ever save enough money making our own water but still want the ability to be independent of having to buy it in islands or have to purchase a dock for the night to get water.  We have been staying here in Southport on a dock and DO have access to water, which is great.  And for the last 5 days, we’ve had enough rain to fill our tanks several times, but setting up a catchment without a real need isn’t fun or convenient.

Over the course of our research, we found several places and most of them were $5000 USD and up.  There are a lot of folks who are DIYers and build their own stuff.  While I have the ability to do so, I usually don’t have the time to sit and measure, design and find all the parts.

In comes a company called Seawater Pro and owner, Michael.  He offers a “kit” that consists of all the pieces you need, including a lift pump, the gauges, and hoses, the reverse osmosis filter, prefilters and the pressure pump required to get you started.

The only “con” to this system is, it’s in pieces and runs on AC power (120 volts) because it uses an inexpensive pressure washer system as the pressure pump.  That means AC power is required (something most people don’t have unless they 1) have generation, 2) are on a dock, 3) have a heavy inverter – mine is dead now, due to the fire a couple of months back) and it just doesn’t seem “easy” to use.

However, I’ve spoken to Michael on the phone a couple times and on FB with one of the representatives from the company and was convinced that this might be our best, and cheapest option.  So I went ahead and discussed this with Michael at https://seawaterpro.com/ and decided to purchase the kit.

That will be the subject of an upcoming blog entry in a few weeks I hope, sooner if I get the car running and my phone back to 100%.  So, stay tuned for more on the water maker, because I will feel better being able to rinse out my bathing suit with fresh water, in the Bahamas come November and December this year!

(and shower, if I want…. )

More to follow on the Watermaker.

Here is a video for anyone interested in checking it out.  https://youtu.be/6SYHVs-uZE0

(By the way, I am sorry about no pictures of the hail