2024 Estelline Trip

Post by **JEBar** » Tue Jul 30, 2024 10:41 am

last Thursday my 8 or so year old Lenovo Yoga had a shower and promptly died ..... without going into detail, we had several commitments and extenuating circumstances that made it impossible for us to replace it until yesterday .... the biggest issue was we usually purchase our electronics from Best Buy because he have a maintenance and service program with them .... the complication was, our nearest Best Buy to where we are staying in east central South Dakota is almost 80 miles away in Sioux Falls .... that translates to about a 160 mile round trip and in our Sportchassis that ain't a cheap drive .... we now have a replacement, an HP Envy Laptop .... it is taking some getting used to and to get it programed to where it is comfortable for me to work with

Post by **JEBar** » Wed Jul 31, 2024 12:45 pm

83 right now with a very humid (for this area) 65% giving it a RealFeel of 90 .... today's high predicted to be 89 .... 91% chance of "heavy to severe" afternoon and evening thunderstorms .... weather radar does show some active storm cells popping up around the state but, so far, none near us .... first up this morning was removing an empty 40lb propane tank from its storage arour camper, loading it onto the back of our Sportchassis, strapping it down, idling up to the local Co-Op, having it filled, bringing it back and loading it back into the camper .... that tank full weighs just over 70 lbs which the older I get, the heavier that seems to be .... during that process I also rotated the tank we've been running on to the front and installing the newly refilled tank to the back .... with relatives rolling in for Maureen's annual wine tasting on Saturday and our annual Frogmore (picture below) scheduled for Sunday we will be burning a good bit of propane

Post by **JEBar** » Thu Aug 01, 2024 11:09 pm

first picture below was taken yesterday shortly below dark ... it shows Estelline with one heck of a thunderstorm rolling it .... its still hard to believe that literally fifteen minutes earlier it didn't appear on weather radar .... we rode it out in our camper ... over the years we've been in it through 3 hurricanes and countless numbers of other storms .... that one last evening was one to remember .... this morning the city guys were busy hauling truck loads of down limbs ... so far as I know, no serious damage was done .... Maureen's pup is a trooper when it comes to lightening, thunder, firecrackers and other such loud sounds ... no clue how strong the wind gust were but they were powerful enough to shake our camper .... that shaking unnerved her pup who road out it out wrapped in her blanket laying on the couch as close to Maureen as she could get .... unsure how much rain we got, do know that except for puddles on pavement, it had soaked in by this morning .... relatives have started arriving for this weekend's gathering .... right after breakfast in the morning we have to make final supply run to Brookings to pickup the last of the supplies we need for the weekend .... no rain today, hopefully that will prove to be true through the Sunday evening

Post by **Hatchdog** » Fri Aug 02, 2024 9:44 am

^^^^^^^^^^

That’s one ugly storm front.

Post by **JEBar** » Fri Aug 02, 2024 1:34 pm

that it was and it very much lived up to its looks

Post by **JEBar** » Sat Aug 03, 2024 9:40 am

Maureen's yearly wine tasting party for ladies in the family went well ... they sat out under the shade from massive elm trees on a beautiful day in east central South Dakota .... our cold smoked cheeses were a big hit .... our smoked Swiss, one of my favorites that really sounds a bit weird, was a big hit .... we now need to pickup some 2lb blocks and smoke it for some of them .... its supposed to get up to 93 later today with strong thunderstorms so we need to get some things taken care of this morning .... with our annual Frogmore (comments/pictures in a post above) scheduled for tomorrow, thankfully, it is supposed to me much cooler (80) with a much smaller storm risk .... in looking back home, it looks like a Tropical Storm forming south of Florida, could bring 15 or so inches to our area late this coming week

Post by **JEBar** » Sun Aug 04, 2024 9:45 pm

heck of a good day .... yep, one heck of a good day .... our morning got off to a less than stellar weather day but, as predicted, a brief shower was followed by broken clouds and very pleasant temperature .... over 40 folks showed up and to our surprise they had decided to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary a bit earlier .... the actual date is October 12th and since none of the folks out here would be able to come to NC, they decided today was a good day to celebrate ... one of her nephews brought his girlfriend, their wedding is scheduled for this coming October 12th .... I told them that we'd try but I doubt we'll be able to make their 50th ....