Well, most of you, I'm sure, have heard about the ice storm that hit western Kentucky and Eastern Arkansas. As far as we understand, people are, to this day, still without power. So, clearly, we did not have it as bad as some. But we did have quite the adventure ...
It started for us on Monday, January 26th. We had heard the forecast about the impending storm and of course we were taking no precaution. In fact, we were joking that evening about the rush to the stores, about the gas lines and the packed Wal-Mart parking lot. Joke was on us, I guess.
That night, the first wave of the storm came through. Sure enough, we lost power. (An aside: This in itself, is not uncommon. As any rural electric coop customer can attest, a stiff breeze from the wrong angle, or a possum who gets too curious about a transformer, can put things out for a day.) We weren't too concerned at this point. University classes were not canceled on Tuesday, but Julie's pre-school (which follows the county) was. (Another aside, hopefully not too many more of these: This again, is not uncommon. The county schools were canceled in December for three days because of an inch of snow. One Inch.)
Anyway, the rain (it was rain) continued throughout Tuesday. The temp was holding steady at 34 degrees. But, that evening the temp dropped and the rain intensified. We listened to limbs falling from trees throughout the night. We hoped none of these were our ONE tree, but we awoke to see this:
And this was the view of the backyard:
We called Julie's folks, thankfully our cellphone was still working, to see if classes were canceled. They were. So, we were excited to enjoy a quiet day around the house. But first, we needed some coffee. This isn't as easy as it sounds, considering a water main had broken in the city and we were without water. Without running water.
This was my job, numerous times a day.
Turns out this much snow gets you roughly 1 cup of coffee. Ice works better.
So, we had coffee. We had pretty good heat. (We have a ventless gas fireplace.) And we ate very well. Dinner one night: BLT's by candlelight.
The problem with eating so well is sort of obvious. It was obvious to us, since we didn't have running water. Turns out, it takes a few of these to gather enough water to flush a toilet.
Our evenings were spent playing board games by candlelight and reading by headlamp.
That flash deceives. This is what Julie would have seen.
The headlamp sure came in handy. But, it split the vote for Most Valuable Accessory with our $5.00 battery powered radio. Our one connection to the outside world, at least when we held it and used our body as an antenna.
Thankfully, our water returned to us on Friday morning. And with it, warm showers. Our electric company had warned customers that they would not be back t0 100% service for 21-30 days. So, we were mentally preparing ourselves for the long haul. But, at 3:00 on Sunday afternoon, we got our power back. See.
And with that, our near-week-long adventure had come to an end. Thanks for all your prayers. Sorry we couldn't get a hold of many of you. Here are some more pictures for your viewing enjoyment.
