Another Lovely Summer Day In The Black Hills

[snousle]

Suffered a hailstorm at Sturgis the day after our arrival. It started as an ordinary thunderstorm, but over the course of half an hour just got worse and worse and worse, until it was like dog's own ice machine getting dumped over your head. most of the hail you see here (several inches in total) got dumped on us in the course of about five minutes, with intense gusts of wind that got water and ice into every crevice. The ice tended to collect into a little depression in a tent or canopy roof, and would accumulate there until the entire structure was flattened.



Typical hailstone size, though in retrospect some of them must have been quite a bit larger:



The kitchen came out remarkably well. The canopy was punched full of holes, and it was a pain in the ass cleaning it all up again, but otherwise there was no damage. At this point, I think I can declare it bulletproof:



We were very concerned about the guys out on the road, i.e. the majority of the camp. Turns out they were fine - they got good and wet, but had no inkling of the intensity of the storm back there. I must confess to being a little entertained to see them roll in and have their ???WTF??? moment when they saw the whole place trashed. We had to stop them from rolling onto the icy lawn, as there was no traction whatsoever, and they were so surprised by it all that they didn't think to stop before the end of the gravel! Fortunately, once the first few took their chances on the slip-and-slide and failed to remain vertical, we managed to stop the rest of them up in the parking lot.

After a few hours, it was warm and sunny again, though ice remained on the ground for the next day, and persisted in patches for a day after that..



Back in town, a broken window at the Iron Horse caused the basement-level bar to be flooded with ice:



Not shown here is damage to my car, which Ted estimates to be in the $3K range. I'll be filing a claim, albeit reluctantly. I don't have a photo of the damage because it's kind of hard to photograph - hundreds of dimples all along the roof and hood. But it's obvious to the eye, and it represents a real loss of monetary value.

I've written before about how the cars that really fascinate me are old and fucked up. It actually offends my aesthetic sense to erase the events of this run from the surface of the car. It's akin to burning a manuscript. But if I don't file a claim, I'd be effectively paying for the privilege of having a trashy looking brand new car. Capitalism is suppressing its narrative! :-P

We had a guest at camp, a native of Lead, and I asked him about the hail. He said "yeah, that's how you recognize the tourists, they're the ones driving nice cars!" Turns out that violent weather is a common occurrence in the hills. The automotive solution to this regular assault is to simply not have a nice car in the first place. Which means, much to my aesthetic delight, the cars there are all pounded to hell.

Kinda wanna be part of that. ;-)

Comments

[wolfstoy.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, you use your Element for your catering business. As such, it is more professional to have a nice looking vehicle. My suggestion to you is to get it fixed but to ask the shop for your old hood back. Keep it and toss it on your car (it's 4 bolts) when you come back to sturgis or want it to look a little more ratty. I kept my old hood from my Forester when it got crunched because it was all aluminum, which was worth good money back in the day. The auto-body place didn't mind because it was less stuff they had to trash.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it could become the "art hood". Hmmm...

[chefxh.livejournal.com]

Wanna be part of being pounded to hell? Imagine that.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

"Autosadomasochism"

[putzmeisterbear.livejournal.com]

They say the dimples on a golf ball make it fly fast and true. Maybe you should leave the dimples. Tell people it's the special racing package.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

The Mythbusters actually tested that - and it got better mileage. ;)

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

I got some dents on my bike's fuel tank. I don't think I'll file a claim, though I may have a go with a ding-popper as there aren't all that many of them. Obviously the number of dings on a flat surface like a car hood or roof makes that impractical in that case, if it would even work.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

LOL. That's hilarious.

[danthered.livejournal.com]

From the sound of it, your Elephant will be a good candidate for paintless dent removal, which uses heat and cold (dry ice) to pop the metal back to where it started.

[beastbriskett.livejournal.com]

I'd heard about the hailstorm. Your pictures tell the story vividly.
Sucks to have to repair a brand new car, but I also like the idea of an art hood.

[twobraids.livejournal.com]

I contracted golfball car syndrome in Montana on I90 in 1985. My Subaru was two weeks old. Insurance paid for the repair, but the paint job was never the same. When the car was ten years old, the repainted surfaces had gone dull and had begun to flake.

[oscarlikesbugsy.livejournal.com]

I concur. One plan: take the money (usually a good chuck of change), do major dent removal only as described above.

[broduke2000.livejournal.com]

I like your comment on the video: "It's just like Canada in January!"