I went for a drive into the open desert the other day. It was my first time outside the wire for 35 days. We went to look at some desert wreckage that we might be able to find some useful salvage in for our camp. I haven't seen grass for the same amount of time so when I saw a large patch of it to the side, I yelled "Grass, hey look at that, grass!!!" I must have sounded foolish to the person driving because he drives these roads daily. I didn't care though. It's been a long time for me and I liked it. We got a little turned around and radioed to the chase vehicle about the location of the wreckage. The chase turned off the main road and headed out onto a broken shale/sand mix of open land. I looked out the window the whole time and saw nothing but when we began to follow the chase, we went over a slow rise and there it was. If you were lost out here and didn't know you're way, God help you. You could drive or walk right past civilization and never know it. That freaked me out.
We got to the wreckage and did some assesement. There was some good stuff there and we all stood talking about the wreckage when one of the other men I was with said " Now that's some Revenge of the Mummy S$!# there!!". We all looked together to the South and what we saw was a wall of sand maybe a kilometer tall and 12 wide coming right at us. You see this stuff in movies and it looks real neat but I'll tell you, being in the open and seeing this wall of sand approach was anything but neat. The sandstorm was about 3 kilometers out so we decided to take pictures of us in front of it. By the time we finished, it was getting close and there was no asking when we were leaving. It was time.
We drove over the open desert and watched the storm approach from our right. We drove parallel to it for some time. The approach seemed to slow and I got comfortable looking closer at this ominous, awesome spectecle of nature. At the bottom of the storm, there looked to be water vapor or white smoke of some sort. I told the driver and he didn't know what it was either. It was about that time that, and I swear I'm not making this up, the vehicle we were in began to cut out. The driver was saying transmission and I was saying fuel and the guy in the backseat just sat stonefaced and watched the approaching storm. We called the lead and told them about the trouble but that didn't help. They kept about a kilometer or so ahead. Punishing us for picking that vehicle apparently. We laughed about the pace they kept even after reporting trouble. WE both knew it was about the storm. The vehicle chugged and wanted to die but, somehow, did not. We made it back just as the front of the storm was making it's way into camp. We got to our respective shelters and breathed a lot easier.
When I went into my hooch, the sky was still pretty visable and the brunt of the storm seemed about a mile away. I walked to the back of my hooch, got a baby wipe from the case, wiped my hands off and then walked to the front and opened my door. It was like Dorthey opening the door in munchkinland. In front of me was a wall of solid orange. I couldn't see more than 2 feet and the wind was Howling. I slammed the door and told the guy with me. " Holy S@@#, you're not going to believe this!!!!!!!". He came over quickly and gasped as I did. It was a sea of orange dust and sand. Fantastic. Now I knew I had to go check my camp though. Things were flying through the air and you could here things hitting the top of the hooch. I got my goggles and mask and went out. By the time I got the mask and goggles though, the strong part of the storm had let up. Debris was all over the camp and everyone was peeking out of there hiding spots. I've talked to people that have been here for a long time and have never seen one like this. I grew up with snowstorms and thunderstorms that would shock a lot of people and I've been near a couple of tornadoes before but this is one weather event that I'll definately find hard to forget!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment