Snowed/Iced In

It is just another challenge.  God in His wisdom sends these once in awhile.  O.K.  Get out the chainsaw, put the Jeep in 4 wheel drive, load the woodstove, and start the generator in the R.V.  Test your resolve.  Deal with it.  Tonight we sit in a dark world (1/18), the main noise being the hum of neighbors' generators.  What sounds like gun shots nearby is another tree or significant branch buckling under the weight of freezing rain.  Barb and I sit comfortably warm.

We thank technology as we knew it was coming.  They predicted precisely.   We picked up Jane and Jensen on Tuesday with ominous warnings of impending ice storms.  First, the snow fell, 6+ inches as we awoke Wednesday morning.  We tried to play in the snow but it was so deep, crusty and the rain began to fall.   

It won't go.

After playing in the snow, let's make snow ice cream.

yummy

 The kids spent most of the day riding their peddlebikes in the garage.  Then the lights began to flicker.  We decided not to risk the trip to take them home.  We hunkered down another night.  We made it to 7:30 a.m. Thurs morn and then the electricity went out.

No electricity.  Why, GramB?

We were warm and had some light as the G kids woke up.  The challenge then was trying to explain to them why there were no lights, why the milk was sitting on the back porch in 30 degree temps so we didn’t have to access the refrigerator, why we couldn’t watch Thomas the Train, how it is that there is a power that comes to every house that powers the lights, the TV, the microwave, and now that power is no longer here.  Eureka.  Jane at 4 understood. Jensen, at 2, remarked, “Can we watch Thomas?”

We took baths and showers with the last of the hot water.  We ate lunch then boarded the Jeep to take the Gkids home.  The trip, some in 4 wheel drive, was like no other drive that I have had in the Puget Sound Basin.  It was like being in the mountains in January.  The roads were littered with ice and tree debris.  As we descended into the valley and drove through Puyallup, there were no lights, stores were closed, the entire Puyallup commercial district was a ghost town with no electricity.  The ride to Tacoma was slow but uneventful.  In Tacoma we experienced electricity.

The road in front of our house.  I had already cleared it once.

Neighborhood street...pull over to let vehicle by

We dropped the kids off at Nathan and Cailyn’s and headed back home.  The roads had deteriorated since our trip into Tacoma.  We drove 4 wheel drive most of the way home, up Shaw Road, spinning at times , and fishtailing through  ice encrusted snow to our home.

We fired up the RV’s generator and we plugged the refrigerator and freezer into the electricity. In the midst of it all a cell phone call.  It is the other Ben, our dear friend from Bangkok, now in Kansas City.  “Puyallup is in the national news,” he relates.  “How are you doing?” 

 As darkness fell, we turned off the appliances and directed the current to lights and internet.  The wood stove ran at full force and we were able to maintain inside temps in the upper 60's.

It was a fitful sleep but we awoke Friday morning to softball sized ice chunks falling from the trees.  It sounded as if we had added a bowling alley on a third floor as the chunks landed on the roof.  Still no power and it is warming up way too slowly but inching above freezing.  It is still very dangerous outside.