We made a fast trip out to Michigan via Amtrak ------ our son Rick had come "home" for a couple of weeks from the Netherlands. Sadly it was for a funeral of a 17 year old daughter of a friend of his. But wanting to see our son --- we packed up and headed for McCook, NE where we get on the train. The train was 2 hours late.......should have given us a clue that this was not a good idea. Arriving in Chicago 2 hours late meant that we missed our train to Kalamazoo......that was no problem (for them) ----we just took a later one....arriving in Kazoo at 9:15 in the evening.
We rented a car and drove to Grand Rapids to pick up Rick at his friends house. Then back to Marti and Tim in Kalamazoo for the rest of the day. We played Aggravation that evening. WOW - that game can really get intense!!! What fun!!! Then the following morning we went out for breakfast and said our goodbyes to Rick.\
The train ride home was uneventful........ things at home were anything BUT uneventful!!! We knew we were coming home to trouble -- just didn't have a clue as to just what we would find. We knew that we had no electricity and that there were a lot of power poles down by the storm that occurred immediately after we left on Monday evening...Tues morning.
As we came along our last mile west we could see the damage.....power poles down - snapped off at the bottom. Apparently the lines had been coated with about 3 inches of ice. Between the Crookston/Lakeview road and just past Don Schelhaas there were 30 poles down.....within 3 miles. And then beyond that we heard a total of 80.
WELL ----- it was 23 degrees in the house.....my plants are all dead - froze solid....we have yet to see how our water pipes faired. But we got the generator going and our portable heater......... --- so heat is coming slowly into our home. Gary left to get Toby and, of course, the generator ran out of gas. AUGH!!!! get back home!!!!!
We are now - at 3:00 p.m. (we got home around 10:00 or so... we are up to 60 degrees in here - feels like heaven compared to 23 degrees. The men working on the lines are saying "power by 5:00 tonight."
We finally had power around 7:00 p.m. So far the only problem with our water works in the house is our shower head doesn't want to give us any hot water. .......and the spray nozzle in the kitchen sink is leaking. Other than that - we haven't got a thing to complain about. We have another shower and Gary will do something (when it's turn for that fix) with the kitchen spray nozzle. As I am typing he is cutting a hole in our bathroom wall......I'm just not looking.
We just heard from our son Mike and they are coming for Christmas YEAH!!!!!!! The weather sounds perfect....praying that it holds!!!
God is GOOD --- all of the time!!!!
Gary and Barb
p.s. I tried 3 times to put pictures on this thing -- - computer giving me grief. sorry!!!!!
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