We just got home Sunday afternoon after a four-day camping trip at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, which was a lot of fun by the way and I still have to write about it, and I was still trying to recover from that trip (it takes me a few days) when the storm hit Monday night. After coming home from the boys' baseball games, we had a snack, prepared the boys for bed, did a few things here and there and finally relaxed and sat on the couch about 9:30pm. Tom turned the TV on. He tuned to NBC and there was this huge green color on the screen with some pink and purple in the middle from the radar. It was heading east on our direction. It did not look good.
There was no talk of bad weather, not at either baseball games. Of course, the boys and I stayed home all day trying to recover from our camping trip and I did not tune to the weather, I seldom do. But Tom is constantly keeping an eye on the weather so I was surprised when he himself did not even know the storm was coming.
We lost power about 10:30pm. The boys and I were huddled in the basement with their glow-stick/flashlight/whistle/flashers on while Tom kept an eye on what was going on outside from the main floor. He started gathering our computers, cameras and home movies and brought them downstairs. I went upstairs to light some candles when I heard this booming sound outside. I knew for sure something went down. I thought maybe it was debris from a tornado, I didn't know. I went back downstairs to check on the boys and we stayed there until the storm had passed.
We woke up to a very muggy morning since we had all the windows shut from the wind and the rain all night and no A/C for the power had not come back. It was a steamy day outside on top of not having power and water in the house. The aftermath of the storm almost became an extended camping for us since we didn't have water nor electricity at the campsite. Luckily, we still had ten gallons of water leftover from camping, which we used throughout the day. (Ten gallons was a lot of water when there was none at all coming out of the faucets.)
The booming noise I heard last night was the tree in our backyard. Luckily, it did not fall on the house. We had just cut the other branch that was bending toward the house last year. Good thing we did for that would have come down on the house. I discovered further that it had fallen on top of one of my flower gardens which destroyed more than half of my flowers in that particular garden. It's only two years old. I worked hard on making that garden look nice. It did, until the tree fell down on it! Oh, well...I had to whine somewhere in this article or whatever you call it. Blog. That's it. Oh, while I'm at it, did I mention the laundry that piled up during four days of camping that I haven't gotten into yet at this point? And then, a full day of no electricity? I should title this blog "Whining" and not what it is now. I know some people have more troubles and have more to whine about than I do but this is mine and am letting it out. Whew! There. I let it out. Really, I should be thankful. And I am, truly.
Now where was I before all this whining thing?
Oh yes. We worked on getting the tree cut and cleared all day long. The sound of chainsaws and generators were blaring in the neighborhood. Almost every household in our block had a tree down. Thankfully, there were no injuries or damage to property.
The town of Eagle, which is roughly fifteen miles west of us was not very lucky. A tornado touched down in the town and destroyed some homes. Only minor injuries, thank God!
Friends and family called to see how we were doing. Thanks for all your concern guys!
The power came back on at 7pm. Thank goodness or I told my husband we would have to spend the night at a hotel or some place where I could take a shower. We were all so sticky and dirty from working on the fallen tree all day.
Now, it's Friday and besides putting my flower garden back together (which I'm not sure anymore if I'll keep it as a flower garden or turn it into a green house area), I think I have recovered from the trip and the storm. Today is the first time I got up at 5am all week and have the energy to write. (Hurray!) It has been a trying week and I'm glad that it's almost over. I can just look back on it and leave it there. Exactly.
Whew!!! :o)
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