The Perfect Storm?

I live in central Phoenix and we got slammed in a way that I have never seen in all the years I have lived here. Hurricane force winds last night, 77 mph. My back fence was whipping back and forth and I seriously was afraid it would take flight. It did break a fence post. Constant lightening, thunder, hail, over an inch and a half of rain. It was truly like Armegeddon. I have never really been afraid during a storm when I was inside the house, but I kinda was this time. I opened the back door to see what was going on with the back fence and immeadiately thought, I should close the door. And then I was afraid my sliding glass doors were going to implode or something.
The storm did something to my air conditioner. I was lucky in that my power didn't go out, but something happened with the wires on the roof and the thermostat was no longer able to let it cycle on and off, it was just on. I didn't realize what was going on until early this morning when I woke up freezing. I wondered why all the dogs wanted under the covers during the night. That is probably what helped me make it to morning, I was having a 3 dog night! When I looked at the thermostat it was 57 degrees inside my house. My canary was puffed up so he wouldn't be a canary popsicle.
Thank goodness I had arranged to work from home this morning and so was able to be home when I got a repairman here. They were able to get my air conditioner all fixed up. I called someone from church who was able to at least temporarily fix my fence and will hopefully be able to fix it for good later. A post broke off at ground level.
I left at lunch and there are trees down everywhere and street lights out. A lot of people are still without power. I guess I would rather have the freezing cold this morning than no power all night.
And my home teachers home that he was remodeling was flooded. I was thinking at lunch, that we are lucky if no one was killed last night between falling trees, lightening, and hazardous rain and road conditions.
So now I'm feeling lucky a my house!

Canyon De Chelly

The last few days I was in Chinle. I have been to Chinle many times but have only been inside Canyon De Chelly once before. Penny and I went a few years ago. It was raining and November. It was freezing. We were in the open back of a tour truck. It was beautiful and miserable at the same time. Several of us from work were in Chinle to do a class for the hospital there. The guy who was over the IT there volunteered to take us into the canyon after class. His family have farmed inside the canyon for generations. You can only go inside the canyon with a native "guide". We had two four wheel drive vehicles that 13 of us were in. You needed to have pretty good clearance, even so folks get stuck all the time or even lose their vehicle to floods etc.
Mike and his wife, Yulinda were very kind. We started off at 5:30pm and didn't come out until 9 PM. It was cool to see it through their eyes, as the place where their ancestors had lived, where his grandmother had herded sheep as a child, etc. There were amazing Anasazi trails and ruins. They took us to their land where they have fruit trees. They told us about the White Monster that lives in the canyon. They very much believe in it, it sounds just like Big Foot. They said it was real and Mike's grandmother saw it.
When we left the full moon had risen over the canyon. I don't think I would want to be in there by myself in the dark. It was very dark and there had been so many massacres , etc. I think it would just be a bit scary to be there. But a cool thing to have done!