Well, the Yuma hamfest is over. It started yesterday from noon to 5pm. We had a pretty good afternoon, being Friday. They had predicted rain for the night and today so things were a bit iffy as far as the crowd was concerned.

We got up early to get ready to go in and it started to rain about 6:30am and it rained harder and harder until it was just pouring. There was lightning and thunder and all that goes with a good old mid western storm. It finally stopped about 7:15 and we went into the building to open up and start business when the public was let in at 8am. Guess what, at about 8:05 am the power went out. Fortunately the building has sky lights in it so we could see pretty well, but without power, we were dead in the water, so to speak.

They checked and found out that the complete grid we were in was out from a lightning strike and they did not know when it would be back on. There were people coming in that stayed in hotels on the north side of I8 and they had power but as soon as they got on the south side of the interstate, everything was out, traffic signals, etc. Traffic was difficult at least.

The locals said that when something like this happens, it is usually hours to a few days before things are back on. Sometimes they have to drive to Phoenix to get transformers, etc. to fix the problem as these things seldom, if ever happen in this area. Yuma gets less than 3 inches of rain a year and a storm like this happens very seldom.

Alas, about 10:30 the power came back on and things soon got under way and the sky cleared and the sun came out and it was a nice, but cool day. They even went so far as to bring in a couple of generators from RV's that were here to power lights and projectors for a couple of buildings where they were holding seminars.

After all was said and done, we had a pretty good weekend and made some gas money so we can get on down the road. Fuel is getting higher out here, in the $3.25 range per gallon.

We are supposed to be out of the fairgrounds by noon, but they mentioned that the Passport America group is coming in tomorrow for a rally next week. Evelyn will check and see if we can stay and join them as we are Passport members as well. Time will tell. If not, we may go back to Quartzsite for a few days and wait on a call about our springs that are supposed to be on order.

It has been cold and damp here and we are trying to get warmed up so we can go to bed and really get warmed up with the electric blanket.