Sandstorm

This morning when I got on facebook, there was a message on my wall from one of my high school friends asking if I was affected by the large sandstorm. My reaction was, "huh?"

I had no idea what she was talking about. So I got on the local paper's website and browsed the headlines to see if there was anything about a sandstorm. Nothing.

Then I branched out and did a google news search.

Bingo! I found this:

The Phoenix Haboob of July 5th, 2011 from Mike Olbinski on Vimeo.

HOLY. CRAP.

I haven't been in Arizona very long, so needless to say this is my first glimpse of a sandstorm. All I can say is, I'm rather disappointed to have missed out on something this awesome and scary, yet relatively harmless.

Another joy of life in the Arizona desert is monsoon season. While we might have missed out on this lovely bit of desert living Tuesday, we were fortunate enough to experience another aspect of it on Monday afternoon: a monsoon!

I've been here long enough to expect nothing less than blue skies and sun all day every day, so needless to say these storms are surprisingly violent and regular. Also, after it rains the roads flood to the point where you feel like you're driving through a lake. To a midwestern girl who had the mantra "Never ever EVER drive through a flooded road because your car will be swept away and you will DIE" pounded into her head since birth, this can be a little nerve-wracking.