Camping in notes and pictures. (Hopefully).

I'm hooked up to the generator now.  I needed to connect my laptop up to it so I could update for work tonight, so I thought I might as well blog.  I must be missing the first couple of pages of my camping in diary because the first entry I see is labeled “48 Hours In”. I thought I was writing a lot of good stuff, but when I went back to look at it, it wasn’t all that profound, just day to day details. Anyway, here’s a summary.

This is a picture of our deck, with a tree lying over on it and our outdoor table and chairs, which are kind of toast now. 

The first couple of days, our concerns were getting out of our driveway, keeping warm, and making sure our families were warm and safe (tons of phone calls) . I’m not sure what we could have done if they weren’t. If my brother hadn’t come in from out of state to get my parents and take them to his house, we might have had to get the police or someone to give them a ride! During this time, we got the 2 ½ trees cleared out of our driveway, the kerosene heater started and our lanterns set up. We read a lot and played a lot of board games. Fortunately, our board game cabinet selection is extensive.

So by Thursday, 48 hours in, my husband had to return to work. My boss from the hospital called to see if I’d work Friday, but the only way I was getting in there was if my husband drove me in the truck and he wasn’t willing to do that after sleeping about 20 minutes and then working a 10 hour overnight shift. Apparently, the hospital was over capacity with a lot of people admitted for carbon monoxide poisoning. One of the other MTs was MIA and they really needed me, but there was no way my van was going in there and you have to be used to the brakes on my husband’s truck to drive it, even on good roads.

I didn’t want to go back to work. I was kind of enjoying the pioneering, cooking over the stove, finding creative ways to entertain ourselves, reading a book about people trapped in a snowstorm. We played Farkle, Racko, The Game of Life, Clue, Apples to Apples, Cranium, Zeus on the Loose, Uno, Outburst, Password, Chinese Checkers, Fluxx and Mad Libs. The funniest Mad Libs we did was one night when we had one about a cruise ship and the phrase turned out to be “our chefs will prepare wonderful pickled desserts that will melt in your pants”. and then when I was reading them, I was supposed to day look at your waxy face and I said “look at your waxy adjective face” (I read the word underneath waxy!) Anyway, I was tired, that’s my excuse. It was so funny. About midnight after your power has been off for 3 or 4 days, everything is just so much funnier. It’s because you start to get hysterical.

It was weird walking outside. I could hear the neighbor’s generators running. Our ‘fridge” was outside now so we had to go out quite often for milk and stuff. It’s good to open your doors a lot to let fresh air in when you’re heating with kerosene. I don’t like the smell of it, but I like being warm, so I dealt with it. I finally did go back to work on Saturday. Our power came back on for part of Saturday and I got to take a nice hot shower before heading in. It went back off again after I got home …

Maybe it will come back on again soon, but the generator makes life more normal anyway. I can work this evening and maybe the kids can have screen time. We didn’t do any school this week. We should have, but we just didn’t. I think they learn things from experiences like this. I know I do.