Holy Dust Storm!

Warning: Dusty Rhoads in Phoenix!

Last night as I was making dinner at about 7pm, and Mitch was outside grilling the steaks, he came running in from the backyard and said quite urgently, "Pam! You have to come see this!" So I rushed outside and this is what we saw moving toward our house:

At first Mitch thought it was a fire storm (we've had those big ones here in Arizona recently...) but it was moving way too fast to be that. Then we thought it was the end of the world. Within 30 seconds it engulfed our home and we were being blasted (exfoliated?) by desert sand. It had been blue skies and sunny one minute and almost total darkness the next.

The winds were so strong, blowing outdoor furniture around and depositing about 2 inches of sand across everything. Colton Lindsey was over for dinner, and we all just stared out the window in amazement. We had never seen anything like that before. Whew! - our first Arizona "Monsoon." Our trees held up really well, but around town we saw branches down everywhere.

PS. We thought the steaks were going to be kinda gritty, but they were delicious.