Caffinna’sCreations

We set off from Speedy’s to Walmart about 12 or so miles on hills and curves, over a bridge over Honey Creek. The only heater in the truck is a little hand held type that is wired into the truck battery, and the normally ineffecient defroster didn’t work at all. My DH had placed the oil lantern on the dash, while still at home, to help defrost windsheild which had caused a small crack. He had to keep moving the little hand held around to keep a visable “feild” open for him to see to drive. Even with the wipers going full blast, the freezing rain was freezing on the windsheild to the point that by half way point in the trip to the store, all that was visible on my side was blurs and shadows.

When the color changed, I knew we were nearing Honey Creek bridge. I said one Hail Mary after another without stopping until I could see the glow of what I knew to be the stoplight. We turned. We were finally arriving at the Wallmart where my parents work. I say finally because the normally 20 minute trip took us almost an hour!

We went inside. My father gave us $20 and said to get a rotissurie chicken for our lunch and use rest for gas or whatever. We got the chicken, some de-icer for the windsheild, and headed for the gas station. We got $10 in gas, a fountain drink to shair a small snack for son and I. We then headed out to Mom and Dad’s place outside of town. Nomatter which way we went we faced icey hills way 1 big hill little/no traffic; way 2 smaller hill lots of town traffic. We figured we were gonna slid, possibley even crash nomatter which way we went. So we opted for big icey hill with little or no traffic. We figured at least we wouldn’t crash into another car if we went this way.

Yup, I am gonna do it to you. To Be Continued………………………………………………..

Okay, this is a much needed updated. It is, however, quite involved and long and not likely to be able to be done all in one sitting. I may be able to get it all done today, it may have to be done over a day or so. But it will most deffinately have to be done over more than one post!!!

On Friday January 12th the first of atleast three record ice storms began moving threw Oklahoma and the tiny town of Jay in which we live. At just after 8 pm our power went off. Not to worry, it does that nearly every storm year round here. So we all grumbled (winter premeires of some of our favorite shows were had just started!) and packed off to bed after fumbling around a bit in the dark. Shortly after 1am the power came back on! Ah hah thought we, as lights and appliances came blarring back to life, so I made a pot of coffee and turned stuff off. We had just gotten the chill out of the air, I drank about half the pot of coffee, when pow…………power was off again! What to do but go back to bed and wait till the power came back on in the morning.

Now I know what you’re thinking, we are NOT stupid folks, power goes on and off and on and off during storms here all of the time, and we ASSUMED (yup, that WAS stupid of us) that this would be the same. DH and I did not get alot of sleep. The sound of crashing limbs hitting the neighbor’s roofs, hitting and bouncing off of (we hoped) the truck, hitting and bouncing off of (again we hoped) our roof, limbs falling in the front and back yards, plus the growing bitterly cold (15 f we later learned) temps, made sleep hard to come by. Saturday morning around 7:30 dh and I, unable to even attempt sleep any longer, got up. DH went outside to assess damage to see if in fact the limbs had missed the truck. It was at that time he saw that the power line to the house was in fact down.

No power to house. Ice storm no.1 in process. Known that atleast one, possibly two, more were to be on the way, temps in the teens and falling, no local shelters open at the time…….no way in hell (sorry folks) we could even attempt to stay! I had 3, that three, bucks and we had very little gas in the truck. We drove up to Speedy’s, local convience store, and dh put $2 in gas in truck. I called my parents (some 24-27 miles away) collect, not home. So I used my remaining dollar to call the wallmart some 13-14 miles away, parents’ work, and ask if we could come barrow gas $$ to get to their house and stay there during storm. Dad said roads were dangerous and ice storm was in progress still. I told dad about the house, the night before, and he agreed as bad as the idea of driving there was at the time, we realy didn’t have a choice.

To Be Continued……………………………………………………………..