The Day After

We hope ya'll had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was, let's just say, memorable.

We awoke yesterday to some seven inches of wind blown snow on the ground and more still falling from the sky. For a couple of hours it was all very fun and festive.

After that, it was not so very merry.

Truthfully, I think a super-size case of cabin fever set in. Well, for me anyway. After spending Christmas Eve away from loved ones we'd come so far to see, and grim prospects for getting out on Christmas Day, I was very near the breaking point. Paul would say I crossed it. And, you know what? He'd be right. Sometime around 3:00 PM, he decided that driving the Jeep on impassable roads was far less risky than spending the rest of the holiday cooped up in the moose with me.

I am married to a very wise man.

We hopped in our squirrel, which is the very best toad ever, and four-wheeled ourselves across town like a one-horse open sleigh. We spent the rest of the holiday in the warm company of Paul's brother and his family. They are a big part of the reason we made this winter sojourn, and it was wonderful to celebrate the day with them.

So, now it's the day after. It seems as good a time as any to size up our current situation.

It's still snowing. Total accumulation looks like about nine inches, but with all the drifts it's really hard to tell. The park has been plowed once, but that was about three inches ago. The temperature has topped the expected high for the day. Right now we're sitting at a very cloudy but relatively balmy 29 degrees.

The moose is hanging in there. Our water pump is dead. It didn't freeze, it just died. Two days before Christmas there was a water main break in the park. Just before they shut off the park water supply, we filled our on board tank. We went to turn on the water pump and realized the thing was dead. Fuses checked out fine, and the brand friggin' new pump actually came back from the dead for a brief time before it expired again the next morning. We tried to call Winnebago for some guidance, but they were closed. We called a local dealer who concurred with our preliminary diagnosis. They offered to see us that morning, but they were closing at noon, are nearly 20 miles away and the forecast called for the imminent arrival of an inch or two of sleet. We decided to tough it out and scheduled a service appointment for Tuesday morning. We were hooked up to park water for a brief time, but with temps below freezing since then we're living with jugs of water and eating out. The upside to this is we have no dishes to wash!

With overnight lows in the teens, we are once again watching our propane consumption. With about one-third of our 30-gallon tank remaining, our goal is to keep the moose warm enough for the bays to stay warm enough to keep our useless water pipes and tanks from freezing while maintaining our propane supply until Monday when we can venture out to our friendly propane place just five miles away. It's closed on weekends, so after dining out for breakfast this morning, we took the Jeep on a reconnaissance mission for sources of weekend propane. Bottom line: In this weather, there aren't any. So, with fingers crossed we are saying prayers to the patron saint of propane that it all works out on Monday.

With no water and far from toasty inside temps, life in our new moose is basically a step or two above tent camping. But, a lovely tent it is. And, on this day after Christmas we are still counting our blessings.

One: Shelter.

Two: Electricity.

Three: The best toad ever.

And, me? I'm especially grateful for my very wise and incredibly patient husband! This memorable Christmas has tested my fulltiming patience. Thanks to Paul, we've made it through and chalked up another story that will bring a laugh or two around a toasty campfire down the road, hopefully sometime soon in Texas.