Weather Pattern Change/Road Trip War Stories/Economy

HURRICANES AND WEATHER
Tropical Atlantic and Pacific are quiet.

Jet stream/upper pattern still has strong ridge over western US. But on Sunday, the ridge begins to retrograde to the west and that will all troughiness to develop in the central US. That also means that locations further west will get rain and that there will be more rain in the south and midwest.

On Saturday, there could be some severe storms from Missouri to New York. On Sunday, severe weather threat is further east of there and just east of the Rockies in Colorado and New Mexico. It will be in the 90s and 100s across the south, especially Texas and the desert southwest. Mild along coastal California and the northeast, Great Lakes and even Ohio Valley.

Houston will be hot and humid through the weekend with some isolated showers or thunderstorms. Some locations will get heavy rain on Monday and possible Tuesday but clouds and rain will help cool things down a bit.

SPANISH WORD OF THE DAY

Let's do bathroom or baño, pronounced BAH-nyo. When you are on a road trip, sometimes you just need to stop and find a baño. See the AND MORE section for a related story.

Since finding the baño is so important, we put that term in the first volume of our award winning DVD, Let's Learn Spanish with Frank & Paco. Order your copy from www.frankandpaco.com/. You can also order from http://www.venturaes.com/, http://www.dololanguages.com/, http://www.carlexonline.com,%20www.thecuriousmindstore.com/, http://www.amazon.com/, http://www.bestbuy.com/, and http://www.barnesandnoble.com/. For our English as a Second Language (ESL) version, go to http://www.frankypaco.com/.



AND MORE

Our poll about demands on your energy has closed. 58% said that work outside the home demanded the most energy. 28% said children demanded the most. 14% said volunteering took the most. No one said that work inside the home, spouse or other took the most energy. Only one answer was allowed. Thanks to all who participated.



Our new poll is about economizing. What measures have you taken because of the poorer economy (or have you taken any)? More than one answer is allowed. Thanks in advance for answering this poll.



Since I am on the road again (as I write this), I am reminded of some childhood roadtrips we took. Now, there were 8 of us altogether, piling into a station wagon. One year, we put our clothes in trashbags (so we could squish everything into the back). You just can't fit that many suitcases in a station wagon with 8 people. Besides, I don't know if we all had suitcases anyway.



I remember our air conditioning going out...but I don't remember feeling hot. Bet Mom and Dad were though.



But this is one of my most memorable recollections. As we made way in the dark late one night, my little brother work up and had to use the bathroom really bad. We were in the very back of the station wagon. My parents didn't want to pull over. So, my mom handed me a plastic cup and said to have him use that. Well, he had to go a lot! The cup was about to overflow and mom and said throw it out the window. So I reached ahead to the second row of seats window and tried to throw it out. Well, you probably know what happened...yep...several of us were all wet. Ewwwwww!!! Adventures in traveling with a bunch of kids. I think I was pretty mad at the time. But, we just had to deal. We were good at that.



Here's hoping your road trips are dry ones.



Happy Weekend!

Cecilia Sinclair

Wonder Weather Woman