Holy crap!

At first this post was supposed to be about:

- us leaving late because of pit stops at the groceries, gas and
Canadian tire
- how huge the bag of twizzlers is and how I was able to make five
knots in one licorice piece (it was exciting at the time)
- How there was a storm far off in the distance and it was cool
because we could see it approaching

But THEN, winds picked up and all went to hell. There are no trees
around here so it was impossible to see how bad it was at first. Then
out of nowhere hay starts flying and hitting Lucy at super high speeds
and Francis is struggling to keep her straight. Next thing you know I
look back and the poptop is up and the canvas is flapping around so I
tell Francis and he quickly pulls over and goes to the back and
struggles to bring it down. The winds were so strong it broke the two
rubber latches holding the poptop. Now Francis is literally hanging
on the handle trying to prevent the poptop from breaking off or the
canvas to rip and I'm just hoping the van won't tip. Yes, it was that
bad. So I make my way to the back and take Francis' place and pull the
poptop down with all my strength and Francis starts driving hoping to
find some kind of shelter. You have to imagine thunderstorms and hail-
like rain outside and grass rolling across the street. Anyway, we
drove for 10 minutes going about 60 and had a few scares along the
way. We pulled into a tiny town, tied the popup down with a strap and
waited it out in the local cafe. There were a few locals there and we
talked about the weather and Lucy and relaxed with barley soup and
green tea. They told us to avoid the campground nearby because there
was a wedding there with "lots of hippies". Haha. One of them told us
to go to a small laneway next to his place so that's where we are
camped out, next to silos and grain elevators. It's actually pretty
cool. :)

I just read the winds were up to 100km/h in some parts. I'm not
surprised. We had hay wrapped around the bumper!

I guess we will be using the strap to hold the top down for the rest
of the trip until we can order new tie downs from cip1. Thankfully the
canvas didn't rip except for a tiny hole in one of the panels.

Anyway, quite an adventure..the weather is messed up because of the
heat wave. Ok back to watching a cheesy 80s Sylvester Stalone movie
(guess who picked it out? Haha)

Night!