Crocheting by Candlelight

That is certainly not a post title that I ever expected to use!  Wednesday night was our last night in Kerrville and a massive thunderstorm came through with extremely high winds.  The news had said that they thought MAYBE north Kerrville would get a bit of the storm.  We are in south Kerrville, so we figured we would get missed.  Not so.  All of Kerrville got slammed.  We couldn't believe some of the damage we saw when we went out yesterday.  Huge mature trees just snapped.  Sheds from a home improvement/hardware store up in the trees behind the store.  Roof partially ripped off of a furniture store.  It was BAD.

And guess who ended up being out and about in the thick of it.  Yes, that would be us.  DH decided that he needed a DQ blizzard as a reward for scrubbing the floors in the kitchen and bathrooms.  Why do men always think they deserve a reward for stuff like this?  He spent three days digging and piling rocks around the foundation of the house and not a word about DQ, but spend an hour sweeping and mopping floors and we must...go...now!  He actually got delayed about two hours because just as we were walking out, the handyman called and said he was on the way so he had to wait until after dinner to go.

When we left, the skies were clear.  Until we got further into town.  Then it was really dark to the north and west and we figured the ranch was getting hit.  It was 87 degrees on the way to DQ.  On the way back it had dropped to 83 in the same spot.  As we made the turn off the highway towards home, it was down to 82.  A half mile later, we got a few rain drops and then without warning, the rain was coming down in sheets and was blowing sideways on the road right at us and the temperature read 66.  We were driving north at that point, which was the direction the wind and rain were coming from.  Another mile and we were home.  We made a mad dash for the porch and still got soaked before we could get inside given that the porch was serving as a funnel for the wind and rain.  The sound of the wind rushing through the porch and the deck was amazing.  We were actually kind of shocked that we didn't have any damage when all was said and done.  The good news is that the sealing of the deck and porch did it's job magnificantly and the roof repair we had done last week seemed to hold up pretty well too.

The bad news is that we had only been home for about five minutes before the power went out.  It had blipped a couple of times while we were setting our stuff down.  Hence the title of the post.  We got out the candles and still had a bit of light from outside, so I sat at the table and crocheted by candlelight.  We woke up once at midnight and the ceiling fan was running, but when I woke up again later it was off again.  By about 8 yesterday morning we no longer had running water and toilets couldn't refill since the septic system can't run without electricity.  We decided that we best go try and get water for filling the toilets and to wash the dishes as well as ice to pack up the fridge contents since we were closing up the house yesterday anyway to head back home.  We stopped for breakfast at McDonald's on the way back and when we got home at 10 a.m. we had power.  Better safe than sorry I guess.  The neighbors next door didn't get theirs back until mid afternoon.  The people across the street from us never lost power at all, yet others on that side of the street did.  Strange.

This morning I am typing this from our hotel in a small town near the ranch where we spent the night.  We will be hitting the road shortly and should be home this evening.  With the two hour time difference, we hope to get back to Phoenix early enough to pick up the dogs from the kennel rather than waiting until tomorrow morning.  We've been able to make it every other year, so fingers crossed that this year will be no different.  Talk to you again soon from Phoenix.  I hope!