The rest of my vacation...!

The rest of my trip to visit my family, after the Elton John concert on Oct. 5th, didn't turn out exactly the way anyone expected, to put it mildly...!  Monday & Tuesday we had gorgeous, mild fall weather with temperatures in the range of 15-20C/59-68F, and took advantage of it:  Monday, my sister & I went back into the city to shop at a new-ish outlet mall neither of us had been to yet. Tuesday, we took a quick trip across the border (about 1.5 hours away) to my mother's hometown in Minnesota to have lunch with the one cousin who lives there and another cousin who was visiting, and do some preliminary planning for a family reunion next summer.

Wednesday (a week ago today) was pretty quiet -- our parents were out for most of the day. There were weather warnings & snow in the forecast.  I expected something like we had when I was there last year in October -- a brief blast of snow that coated the backyard patio furniture, but quickly melted again (not unheard of in this part of the country in mid/late October). The further along the week got, though, the more dire the predictions got...!  (I had brought my winter jacket with me -- but no boots!)

It started snowing & blowing on Thursday. My sister's partner/boyfriend was still in the city (about an hour away) and supposed to be coming in time for dinner that day. He made it there -- but told us he passed five cars in the ditch along the way, including a big transport truck/trailer!  It's a good thing he came when he did, because the storm kept getting worse & worse. Really awful. Howling wind, and more and more snow -- the wet, heavy kind.

(Canadian) Thanksgiving was coming up on Monday, and we decided to have our turkey dinner on Friday -- the idea being that then we'd have Saturday & Sunday with all of us around to eat up the leftovers. The storm continued to rage all day, and the lights kept flickering -- but the power stayed on and the turkey got cooked!

We'd JUST finished eating when the power went out, around 7 p.m.  After a while it become evident it was not going to come back on anytime soon -- and we didn't want to open up the fridge or freezer (to keep the food in there cold for as long as possible) -- so we packaged up the leftovers by candlelight & flashlight, & put them out in my parents' attached garage. When it's cold outside, it's like a natural refrigerator out there anyway, and it was certainly colder out there than it was in the house... although it soon started getting pretty cold in there, too!  I was texting with dh & he told me I should turn off my phone to save the battery power & data. Luckily my e-reader was fully charged and it's got a back light, so I bundled up and sat by the candlelit kitchen table & read for a while. I went to bed around 11, wearing my clothes (socks, yoga pants, long-sleeved T-shirt & cardigan) and with an extra blanket to stay warm, but it was pretty cold, and I didn't sleep very well.

When I got up Saturday morning, there was still no power/no heat, and it was colder than ever. (The thermostat isn't digital, but it looked like the temperature inside was about 14-15C/57-59F.)  A lot of people commented we were pretty lucky this was October/Thanksgiving, and not December/Christmas!! It was about -2C/28F outside... cold enough, but things could have been much, much worse!

I turned on my phone to text dh. No service.  Uh oh.  Went to the bathroom, flushed the toilet and... no water! (Just a trickle from the tap.)  Oh dear. Went downstairs & picked up the phone (my parents' landline). Totally dead.

Oh boy.  I've been through power outages before -- but to lose power/heat, water AND phone service -- that was new!!  I knew dh was going to be frantic when he didn't hear from me -- but there was absolutely nothing that I could do about it.  All the highways in & out of town (& throughout most of the province, actually) were closed too. We didn't know it until later, but the premier had declared a state of emergency.

All we could do was wait, & try to stay warm. We brought in the turkey and had turkey sandwiches for brunch (lol).  Thankfully, the snow was starting to subside, and around noon, the water came back (my sister immediately started filling up buckets & water jugs & basins, just in case it went out again). Her partner went outside & started shovelling the wet, heavy snow from the driveway (about a foot & a half, my dad thought) & talking to some of the neighbours. I was very glad that we were there to help my parents out.  (Also glad that I didn't have young children to worry about and to entertain, lol.) 

We played cards all afternoon, wearing our winter jackets & wrapped in blankets, lol.  Our street finally got plowed around 4 p.m., and a few minutes later, a town worker came knocking on the door to see how we were all doing. He told us they couldn't give a definite time when the power might be back on, that it could be another 12-24 hours (!).  He also said there was a boil water advisory in effect, and that we could get bottled water (& coffee, & food, and get warm) at the emergency centre they'd set up. (My parents have a water cooler and had a few jugs in reserve, thankfully.)

After the street got plowed, Dad & my sister's boyfriend went out in the car to see what was going on. The convenience store had power & was open (!) so they went in & managed to grab the last carton of milk and a package of hot dog buns. Then my sister, her boyfriend & I went out for a drive (listening to the radio and charging cellphones & my mother's tablet as we drove around). We drove out to a newer development where we knew the power had been restored to see if we could pick up a wifi signal (sister's boyfriend does work for several of the residents there & had their passwords!) -- but no luck. And then we went to the emergency centre. My sister asked if they had a working phone -- no luck there either, but we were able to get coffee for her boyfriend, and hot water for tea for Mom & me, which made us all happy. Dad wasn't sure how much propane he had left for the barbecue, but he fired it up and warmed up the leftover mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and cabbage rolls in aluminum foil pie plates, and we had that for dinner with the cold leftover turkey, by candlelight. It was SO nice to have some hot food!!

Around 8, my dad's cellphone suddenly started to ring!! It was PND (Parents' Neighbours' Daughter), mom of the two Little Princesses! She had been storm-stayed for the past two nights at a motel in the town where she works, about 20 miles away, and only got back to her home & family late that afternoon (she told us traffic on the highway between the two towns was down to ONE LANE in BOTH directions)(eeekkkk).  She said they just got their power back and her cellphone started dinging with notifications, so she called to find out if we were all OK. I turned on my cellphone, and sure enough, there was a connection, and the landline dial tone was back, too!  So I immediately called dh, & boy, was he relieved to hear from me. He knew I'd be OK, because he knew I was at home with my family, but naturally he was still worried.

The power finally came back on around 10 (after 27 hours without!)... believe me, we were all holding our breath, hoping it would STAY on, lol. (We'd had a few small hopeful blips during the day, but nothing that stuck more than a minute or two.)  I still slept in my clothes that night, because it was still pretty cold in the house! Things could have been worse... the town where I lived when I was a teenager, about an hour away, was one of the hardest-hit areas of the province, and one of my high school friends was powerless for 54 hours! She said it got down to about 14C/57F in the house, and she lost most of the food in her fridges & freezer.

Sunday was pretty subdued. Everything else was working, but then the cable TV decided to go out (much to my mother's dismay). The grocery store was open and my sister & I went there for a few things. I've been there on Christmas Eve -- this was just as busy as that, probably busier, lol.  They had to throw out EVERYTHING in their freezers, although the reserve freezers in back were OK & they were restocking when we were there.

My flight home was early Monday afternoon. We left plenty of time to get to the airport in the city (a little over an hour away). The roads were fine by then, but we saw lots of tree damage along the way. 

Needless to say, dh was VERY happy to see me -- he told me I'm never going away for that long again, lol.  It was good to see my family, but it's also very good to be back home!

Coming up: Some reviews of the books I read while I was away!

Looking out the front window at the height of the storm on Friday afternoon. 

View of the backyard patio late Friday afternoon.
From left, you can see the patio table, two chairs, hanging basket, clothesline post and barbecue,
all buried under huge mounds of snow.
In the background, the trees HAD some beautiful coloured leaves when I arrived...!  Mostly gone now!
(This is NOT normal for mid-October!!)