Hail storm.... can we say... interesting?

I rolled out of bed this morning about 3:45. I had the alarm on my phone set, and I had it set to where a really loud song would play, it went off and it woke me up pretty darn fast. So I made up my bed, got dressed, did a few various other different things, ate a bowl of rice krispsies and then stepped outside and took in the wonderful smell of rain. Mmmm. It was damp, but it hadn't rained, and didn't rain. But it sure did smell good. Once I arrive at the barn, after driving down that lonely stretch of highway, we catch and load up the horses. Then take off at 5:30. We get to the blind school at about.... 8:30, 8:40 or so, unload, saddle up, and get started. We only had 7 groups today, but goodness I didn't think it was ever going to end. I like this kids and all, but that is a lot of walking, my blister came back. It stayed kind of warm, and got pretty humid. And it started to cloud up toward the East, which was in the direction of home. But I didn't figure it was doing anything there. Everything went pretty well. We had one girl who really likes to scratch and bite, and she is definitely a pain. Whoever side walks with her has to wear these long gloves type things. One of the ladies I work with, Ann had helped side walk with her, and didn't have the gloves and ended up getting scratched. So some of the nurses that came out told her she had to go get looked at, at the health service building there on the school grounds, she wasn't too happy about it, but it couldn't be helped.

We got done at 12:30, gave the horses a drink. Loaded 'em up, then drove down the road aways and went to eat, I got a really good club sandwich, and drank two glasses of lemonade. Mmmm that sure tasted good. We spend about an hour eating and such, then start home. Along the way we get into some clouds, and it starts to sprinkle on us off and on. We stopped once at a casino to do a little gambling... no I'm kidding, haha. There was a casino at the place we stopped, but we went into the convenience store that was in the same building as the casino. We didn't do any gambling, I promise. Man it smelled SO good when we got out, there was the smell of rain, mixed in with the smell of the pine trees (it's in the mountains) oh it smelled wonderful, I wanted to bottle it up. Anyway, I got a ice cream taco thing, and some coffee. And everyone else got... something. Off back down the road we went. As we drove along we noticed this white substance on the side of the road, and then down on the houses and pastures below. At first we thought it was snow, it was so weird though cause it wasn't there when we went up there, and it wasn't cold enough for snow. Well, we figured out it wasn't snow, instead it was hail, yes hail. Small, little pieces of hail that was packed together making it look exactly like snow. We really thought it was snow, cause it completely covered the ground in a few places.

So we kept driving along, and noticed we were driving into a storm, we kind of figured it would just rain. And it did.... for awhile. Off and on, but then it started the hail. It started out really slow, not much of it falling. But then as we kept driving it started getting worse, and worse, and worse. It started to make us a little nervous. And it just kept pounding down on us, harder and harder. There was a little while where we couldn't see anything. And then it started to get really hard on the road, and slick. And we were pulling a trailer... through the mountains. Good thing about the trailer though was the weight. Terry couldn't decide whether to keep driving, or just pull over. She decided to keep driving. A lot of people were pulling over, but since it didn't seem like it was going to get any better we decided that keeping on going would be the best thing. And then the hail started getting bigger. One hit and cracked the windshield real bad, then 3 more hit and cracked it even more. The whole darn thing was completely cracked. And then one hit the drivers side window, put a hole in it. Two more hit and completely shattered the whole window. It went all over Terry, and cut up her arms a little, but not too bad. During all this everyones nerves were frazzled and everyone was snapping at each other, Terry told me to keep a eye on the trailer to make sure it wouldn't slide around because of the ice. It just wasn't good at all.

It was SO loud, and the hail was huge. I didn't think we'd ever get out of it. It was a wonder some hail didn't fly in the window and hit Terry on the head. She had glass all around her, so she was afraid to move. And we had had some fly into the back where we were at, so we were trying to be careful too. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the hail quit. Or more like we got out of it, it was probably still going on behind us. Oh man it was a relief though. We ended up driving about 20 miles an hour cause we were afraid the windshield would cave in if we drove to fast. We were all so completely realized that we finally got out of it, everyone calmed down. And we all got to laughing a little about it all. We dropped Brenda off at her vehicle. And then made the 20 minute drive back to the house. We unloaded the horses, checked the over real well (we thankfully had put fly mask on them so that kept their eyes and everything protected) then we unloaded the saddles and such, and Terry sent me home. She had already told me if the storm was still bad when we got to the barn then I was going to stay at her house until it passed, (which I would have) but since it was more back off toward the North she sent me home. I was so glad, I just wanted to get home. Now I'm here, the adrenaline and all that has worn off, and I am completely and utterly worn out. I'm going to bed soon. I have to get up and go back over there tomorrow (just to the barn) so I think sleep is in order. We aren't going back to the blind school on Thursday like we were supposed to, since Terry's pickup it in pretty bad shape. So I'm pretty glad about that. So that was my day, it was definitely a interesting experience, that I didn't enjoy to much. I like to be in my own house in those kind of storms, they scare the liver outa me. I was just praying the whole time, asking the Lord to please get us through it, and He did :-) I wish the rain, would have come this way. Glad the hail didn't though.

Well, think I'm outa here now. Have a good'n.