Winds of Hell

I'm back in California!!! Yay! But the state didn't exactly throw its arms open for me in welcome. The Sacramento Valley had some serious weather going on. There were winds of up to 50 mph! Since we'd landed a little early, we had to wait on the tarmac until our gate was free (maybe 10 minutes). You could just feel the wind buffeting the plane. And it was a big plane! Then, it took even longer than usual to get off the plane since they had major difficulties attaching the gateway to it. They actually gave up with the front door, and let us out between first-class and coach. Good! That door was closer to me, and I seriously had to pee =). After that there was still a lot of unusual waiting. They actually delayed unloading the baggage and carting it to baggage claim because the wind kept blowing the suitcases off of the conveyor belt. Happily my suitcase has survived another journey. I'm just waiting for my stuff to explode in the belly of the plane and be unceremoneously heaped on the carousel.

That wasn't the end of the adventure even. There was still the shuttle ride from the airport to my house. The thing I love about Davis, and even Woodland, is that despite their convenient proximity to Sacramento (~15 miles), they are not suburbs. They are their own entities, and are surrounded by agricultural nothingness. This is because of the Sacramento River Delta, which lies to the west of the city, preventing suburban development. So to get to Sacramento from either Davis or Woodland (or vice versa), you have to drive on a long causeway over rice paddies (don't even get me started about paddy agriculture in California... The cool thing about the causeways is that they're home to one of the world's largest bat colonies. I still need to go lurk off of I-80 at dusk to watch the hordes fly out). These causeways can be pretty treacherous on windy days, however. Flashback to the 50 mph gusts =D. An older shuttle that my driver told me about had already been involved in an accident. What happened is that that model of shuttle had a sign on the top, kind of like taxis do. Not so good when it's a big sign on a windy day... The sign actually blew off of the top of the shuttle, smashing into another car's windshield. D'oh! Our journey was much more tranquil, but not without excitement. We drove past an east-bound Mack truck that had toppled over due to the wind, backing up traffic all the way to Woodland. I wonder if it was empty? A heavily loaded semi- shouldn't be that vulnerable, right? When I went to lunch an hour later, they had actually closed off the entrances for Sacramento bound I-5. I guess CalTrans decided the causeway was just too unsafe for driving under those conditions.

Then I had to brave the elements myself, since there's no food to speak of in my house (for dinner I made a pizza boy brave the elements, but it had calmed down somewhat by then). Steggie and I didn't have any problems. Being a small car is both good and bad in such a situation, I guess. Since we're little, there's not much of us for the wind to grasp onto and hurl away. Alternatively, we don't weigh much, so it doesn't need the greatest grab. But still, we were fine. Running between Steggie and shelter wasn't fun, however. Even less fun was standing out in the mess getting gas. Why was I too lazy to fill the tank before I left for Georgia? Why?!

Luckily, the wind eased up a little bit by the time I had to take Ozzie to Davis to get his last batch of shots. He was such a brave kitten! (he's huge now, by the way! He doesn't look much bigger, but he's a lot more substantive. He already weighs 5 pounds!) For some reason he disliked the nurse but was perfectly fine with the actual vet... hmmmm. I think I will get him ID-chipped. It sounds like a good idea. If Felix had had a chip, we'd probably have gotten him back... Those Chico jerks wouldn't have been able to lie... And amazingly, Ozzie has already forgiven me for abandoning him for 2 weeks with only Chester and occasionally John for company, and making him go to the vet for vaccinations. Yay! Such a sweetheart =).