Yes, we're finally on the road! First phase of our move, the house hunting trip. But the last 24+ hours have been wild.
First, the nice weather (save for wind) that we've enjoyed most of the time we were at GUMO (NPS-speak for Guadalupe Mountains National Park) left us yesterday, in spades. By Wednesday, the wind was gusting at 60 mph, and yesterday it seemed even higher, though I didn't have time to check it. Around noon, the clouds started rolling in. Before the night was over, we had freezing rain, as well.
I had thought I was done with laundry, silly me, because all our clothes were clean. But yesterday I realized that we would need to wash all the bedding that stayed at the park, the bath mats, our towels, well...lots. Between pushing my way out the door with the wind trying to hold it shut, running across to the laundry facility, and cleaning like mad while loads were washing and drying, I was racing the clock all day.
Budd came home early, having taken a few hours of leave time and combined them with the 'leave early' word that came through, so he started taking the electronics apart and loading the car. He had asked if he could park the car on the lawn to the north of our duplex where it would be somewhat protected from the wind, so he could open the doors and the cartop carrier without fearing they'd be ripped off as he struggled to load things. The maintenance supervisor told him it would probably be frowned upon, but to do it and see what happened. Fortunately, nothing happened.
We weren't quite finished with the cleaning and still had a long way to go on loading when the same guy showed up for a check-out inspection. I guess the clean bedroom and bathroom convinced him I'd leave the kitchen and living room clean, too, because he signed off on it. Budd and I continued to dance around each other, as I was now picking up whatever turned up after he had moved a box or packed a computer, and trying to figure out where to put it that made the most sense. Every time he left the house with something to load, he left the door open, so I was constantly going to shut the door. Finally it was too dark for him to see much, and I finished putting everything in our green chili stew for dinner and sat down to rest while it cooked down.
The next thing I knew, Budd had a bowl of stew and was sitting on the couch with it. I told him if I had known he was ready to eat, I'd have served it up, so we both adjourned to the dining table and enjoyed our last few peaceful moments until just now.
We had finished eating and I had finished washing the dishes and had just dumped the leftover stew into the garbage disposal when the power bumped, once, twice, three times, then went out for good. Budd was cussing a blue streak because the laptop was hooked up without a UPS to protect it from the surges. I was feeling around in the pitch dark for the emergency lantern I had last seen on his end table. The wind was howling loud enough that if a locomotive had come through the house right then, we wouldn't have heard it. Pure panic time!
Finally, I found the lantern and figured out how to turn it on. Budd had managed to turn off the laptop in case the power surged again when it came back on. We needn't have worried...
We called the power company and were told that a crew was on its way from Queen, a tiny town on the other side of the Guadalupes. We knew it would take two hours to get to us from there under the best of circumstances. In the dark and stormy weather, who knew? Budd called the park supervisor, because we could see lights across the way, and learned that there were three legs of the power grid--only ours was out. But he had candles, did we want some? YES!!! We didn't know how long the batteries would last to the emergency lantern. So Budd went over to get the candles, and came back with three little 2-oz fragrance candles--not much light!
We settled down to wait, snuggled under a blanket and fretting that we were missing the Jazz game, trying to read by the dim light of the lantern, and worrying about getting the rest of our tasks done if the lights didn't come back on all night. And they didn't!!! That was one of the coldest nights I've spent in many years...always before when the power went out we've had a fireplace to keep us warm. Fortunately it was toasty under all those clean blankets, lol. We had planned to sleep in our clothes on the couches anyway, so the bed linens wouldn't have to be washed in the morning, but we had to get out the park blankets because ours weren't sufficient, especially after one had to be hung up over the window to stop the cold draft. About nine p.m. my eyes gave up from fatigue and I fell asleep.
The trouble with falling asleep at nine is you wake up at four a.m., ready to get up. But there was still no power and it was too dark to do anything, so I spent another fitful three hours until there was a hint of light coming through the blinds on the window we hadn't covered. I decided to go ahead and wash the pot I had made stew in the night before, so I could heat a good amount of water for washing up, and that's when I realized that the garbage disposal wasn't going to run! Elbow deep in freezing water, I pulled out as much of the gunk as I could, so the sink would drain (yeah--a one-sink kitchen).
I lit the propane stove burners with matches and managed to make a good, filling breakfast though what I had planned required the oven and it wouldn't light. I had all four burners turned up to high to at least heat the kitchen, and for the first time was grateful for that tiny kitchen, too small for both Budd and I to be in it at the same time.
Well, it was clear that the rest of the packing and cleaning would have to be done without power, so we just did it. Wrote the maintenance supervisor a note saying the dishes in the dishwasher had been prewashed, but would need to run through a DW cycle. The garbage disposal would need to be run, and sorry about the half-vacuumed house. We pulled out at 10 a.m., Budd in the park vehicle, which needed to be taken back to his office, and me in our car, perched on the edge of the driver's seat holding on to the wheel to keep from falling backward. Had to leave it at Budd's setting, because if I had pulled it forward to mine everything in the back seat would have fallen forward and would have to be repacked before he could get in. Have I ever mentioned he is 13 inches taller than I am?
After that, the drive was relatively uneventful...and here we are, halfway to Denver. Whew!
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Wrapping it up: On New Year's Day we completed our journey to the Denver area, an uneventful but beautiful drive. We are now here in Golden for a six-day househunting trip, after which we will return to the Salt Lake City area for a few days. Budd has some things to wrap up at his home park, Timpanogos Cave National Monument, and then we meet the movers on January 12. Since we won't be wanderers any more, this blog is done.
It's been fun, and I hope my readers have enjoyed following us on our journeys. By now I'm used to journaling online, so I may continue, but if so it will be at another location. I'll still be active on Facebook, so catch me there if you'd like.
Adios!
