Awning... and a fire warning

Before we left Kaibab National Forest, we had wanted to try to do something to protect the newly installed awning, to ensure that we could drive in the wind and not worry about the awning pulling out and getting caught in the wind and ripping off again. Since Carl had already experienced this back in 2019, and since it took us 16 months to get a new awning installed, it seems prudent to try to avoid the need to do this again!

Ultimately, I think we're going to try to acquire awning straps like this: awning straps

But we didn't have those with us, and we were going to be driving in windy weather, so we decided to use something we had, "ball bungee cords", like this: ball bungee cords

We didn't get pictures while I was on the roof, but here's what they look like installed:

It is the green thing up near the top. We figured that putting something that tied it in as close to the top as possible would give the biggest impact. Besides which, we don't carry a ladder with us, and putting it anywhere on the awning arms from the ground -- albeit as far as we could reach --  would not make it very high.

I had to stretch the cord on the ball-and-cord bungee pretty hard, and I'm concerned that the cord will pull out of the ball, so I think it is important that we get the other awning straps for more security. I think we will still install them from the roof too...

Having to get onto the roof to install and release the awning straps isn't the most convenient, but, compared to having the awning pull out and rip off, it is worth it, and, we figure we won't really use the awning a lot while we're in the west because the wind can be so unpredictable, and, even having it deployed at the campground can be risky if the wind comes up while it is out.

It is funny, after waiting so long to get the awning installed, the responsibility to effectively "steward" this belonging is heavy! And, we've gotten so used to not having it that we may not use it a lot, but at least the rig has the equipment installed with which it was initially equipped.

On Sunday afternoon, we noticed quite a lot of smoke south and east of us:

Picture taken from behind Gracie

We looked up and a fire had started Sunday afternoon south/southeast of Kingman:

https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/7438/ 

We always know that, when traveling in the west in the summer, we have to be aware of fire danger and on the watch. This one is "behind" us, so won't impact our travels (we plan to travel to Las Vegas on Monday), but we will continue to be vigilant.