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| My work area to make dinner. |
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| Our street after the cutter came through. The berms are taller than me. |
We had a massive series of storms move through Tahoe last week that took out power to the entire region. We went through a 31 hour stretch without power then had power for a day before it went out again. 45 hours of no power for the next stretch. We had one blissful evening of light and internet before it went out yet again...and stayed out. As I'm typing this, I'm at work in the main PUD offices, which have been set up as a Red Cross warming zone. Since the rec center I normally work at on weekends is in my neighborhood and powerless, they decided to send me over here to make myself useful. Yea, power and internet for my six hour shift before I go home to the dark zone... Have I mentioned cell reception in my house sucks. Yeah, one bar if I put my phone in the right spot by the dining room window. So, I'm truly cut off from the world!
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| Even Ginger isn't thrilled since the snow is so deep in the woods we have to walk on the street. |
I took Ginger for a walk this morning and found the crux of my problems for this most recent outage. A tree fell, taking out power lines in our neighborhood. There's a wad of tangled wires on the ground with caution tape blocking that section of the street. Oh joy. No one was working on it, and I have a feeling we're low on their priority totem pole. We're 2 days into this most recent stretch of no power and counting. I can only hope it'll all be over by the time this posts on the 18th.
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| Our driveway after I got the car shoveled out. |
So, the moral of my story is...being a pioneer wasn't a whole lot of fun. Or maybe we're just spoiled. By the way, WILDE ONE is on sale for 99 cents all month. So, if you haven't started my BORN TO BE WILDE series, now's a great time to do it! Available on AMAZON or find additional buy links on my WEBSITE.
Have a great day filled with light and internet connectivity!
15 comments:
Oh, Jannine....such beautiful scenery, but being snowed in without power or the ability to reach anyone is not fun, and it's no joke. I grew up in the northeast, and when we got hit by those massive storms, it was miserable. I know some of you LOVE the snow, but once you've had to ice-pick your car from a block of frozen snow to get to the hospital 20 miles away after your mom had a heart attack, the "how pretty!" glasses fall off your face quickly. Or inching along a roadway in a mile-long line of cars, defroster blowing at full speed, your wipers slapping furiously at the "stuff" falling from the sky, having to get out every couple of minutes to knock the ice off the blades and praying the car doesn't break down...UGH. I have to stop now. I'm getting anxious just thinking about it! :-) (I wouldn't make a good pioneer either!) I think (hope?) by now your power is restored!
Have to say, your attitude is amazing. I'm shaking my head and rolling my eyes in the most 'OMG how awful' way. While I do feel your pain, you got one heck of a great post out of it. Beautiful pictures. You can almost hear Ginger saying, "Seriously?" One question. Have they opened the mountain back up for skiing? That would be something. Oh, what's PUD? (Guess that's two questions, huh? ;-)
One more thing. My sis-in-law, the nurse, who came down to take care of me after surgery tried to go home yesterday and couldn't. Snow topped by ice caused by freezing rain. In her own way, Mother Nature is doing a number on us too.
Jannine, that is awful. We lost power (a long time ago) for 4 days, but that was in the summer after a straight-line tornado went through. So we didn't have to worry about heat. I assume you have a generator or are you heating with a wood fire? If we lost power, even though we have gas heat, electricity runs the furnace. I wouldn't be a good pioneer, either. I like my creature comforts. I hope you have power by now. Stay warm!
Leah, my family loves the snow because they're all skiers, but this was ridiculous. An update for everyone. Yes, the power is back on. We were without for a total of a little over 5 days in all. The snow is packing down, and Ginger and I went snowshoeing in the woods yesterday. I was worried about her post-holing and hurting her legs, but someone had been out there making tracks, so she was okay. I'm not a fan of driving in the snow, but over the years I have mastered the art of leaning out the window to grab the wiper blade and snap it to get the snow off while I'm driving!
Margo, the PUD is the Public Utility District. They run the parks and rec department I work for both at the rec center and the boat ramp. The ski hills were all shut down from power outages and avalanche danger for several days, but they were back up and running when I wrote this piece. Pat gave up on shoveling/snow blowing (and since he couldn't work--outdoor framing at his current construction site) he went skiing for 4 days straight and was in heaven with all that powder! Hopefully your sis-in-law finally made it home safely today.
Diane, we have a wood stove in the living room, so the downstairs was warm. The upstairs bedrooms didn't get much above 50 degrees, though. I slept in my robe under a thick comforter. No hot water. I finally took a shower at a friend's house during the longest stretch. 15 years ago, we actually had a seven day stretch of no power, and that time a tree fell on our house, so I guess I shouldn't be whining. This wasn't close to that bad!
Thanks for showing us pics of the heavy snows at Tahoe. Reminds me of my younger times when we lived in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and Faribault, Minnesota. I remember digging tunnels in the berms made by the snow shovelers...at the side of the road. As a kid, the big snow/no school days were magical. I left the snow world for the water world of Seattle (skiing in the mountains closeby) ; now for the dryer, mild weather of California. But I still like to look at the pictures of snowy worlds! Glad you're able to communicate again!
Aww, Rolynn, snow days... I may have forgotten to mention that my youngest (a senior in high school) has forgotten what going to school is like. After Christmas break, they had 8 snow days out of 9 in the first two weeks! The school board is scrambling to figure out what to do, and finals had to be pushed back. Thank God, they're in class now, but it's snowing again (lightly this time), so we'll see how that goes...
Ah, you poor thing! I would not make a good pioneer either. I'm glad you finally have power, but wow, that's a long time to go without it. The pictures are gorgeous. I'm one of those 'snow lovers' too, but as Leah said, I haven't been through all the hell that sometimes goes with it. I've had some pretty rough experiences, but they were short and temporary. Hope the power stays on for you!! What an excellent deal on your book...I have it, or I'd most certainly snatch it up. :)
When I was a young girl growing up in Kansas, I used to think I would have had the grit to make a good pioneer. I was wrong. I've been without power for five days, and you're absolutely right--it sucks. It's raining here today, the first of three storms predicted forthe next five days. I hope you don't get buried again.
Ally, thinking about being a pioneer is probably more fun than the reality would have been! The first couple of days weren't too horrible. We played Clue, Aggravation, Yahtzee, and Life. But that got old by day three...
It's snowing here, Alison. But the forecast is in inches each day, not feet!
Jannine, wow. Not much more to say. We do romanticize certain periods of history. I often bemoan the tech age but it does beat the heck of just surviving day to day.
Brenda, we definitely romanticize history. Every time I read a book set in a previous century, I can't help remembering the hero would (in reality) have smelled really bad. LOL
Ha, Jannine. One of the things I like the Outlander series for is mentioning this sort of thing occasionally. In the one I'm reading now, she has a dialogue about toilet paper now existing...they use corn cobs. Oh gross. She often mentions how they stink but in the time frame, it isn't considered stinking. LOL
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