It was a nice warm and quiet summer evening.
Kimball was outside driving his remote controlled truck with Karsten on his heels.
Kent was home from work and I was circuiting the house, trying to get it clean before Kent's mom arrived. As I went outside to check on the kids, gather some toys and see if the laundry hanging on the rack was dry, I looked to the mountains and saw a giant wall of something in the distance to the Southeast. Because of some red color, I thought maybe it was smoke from a very large fire. But, it was growing in size and moving toward us quickly. By the time I summoned Kent to come and have a look (something so cool it just had to be seen) and grabbed my camera, most of the existing mountain was nearly covered and it was moving fast. After bringing in the laundry and shutting all doors, we gathered on the front porch to watch as this giant wall of wind and dust came soaring towards our house. We stayed outside as long as we dared!
It was about 7 pm and still very light outside, but as the dust storm surrounded and pounded our house, it was dark (the picture didn't show it justice).
The wind knocked our garbage cans through gate and into our backyard and broke the lid off our hose reel, blew dust and dirt into our entryway and left a layer of dirt in nearly every windowsill. I still haven't finished cleaning the dirt (weeks later).
Susan was on her way here and on the 202 freeway when the storm hit. She couldn't even see and thought about stopping, but didn't dare. By the time she arrived at our house, the worst of it had passed, but it took every ounce of strength I had get the dead bolt off to open the front door with the wind still blowing.
Welcome to the wide open desert spaces of Arizona!
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