Power Outage

I woke up Sunday morning at ten to six, reached over to turn on my light and it didn't turn on. It has been threatening to burn out for about two weeks, so I just assumed that it had finally bit the dust. I headed into the bathroom without turning on any other lights, flipped the switch in the bathroom, and discovered that the electricity was out. It was chilly in the house, but that was not unusual, since the temperatures at night had been 20 to 30 degrees below zero for the days preceding Sunday. I found out later that it was 35 below on Sunday (in some areas of Island Park, not necessarily at my house).

I went back to bed, assuming someone else had probably called the electric company to alert them that our power was out. As I lay there, trying to decide whether I should really get up or not, I remembered earlier this summer when I was without electricity twice, and it had only been my house both times. So, I jumped out of bed and called the outage in.

I don't care how cold it is, Mom!  Come take me for a walk!!!

At about seven, I received my first call to tell me that church had been cancelled because of the cold. By the time seven-thirty rolled around, I was really starting to get cold. I crawled back in bed to try and get warm. I heard the crunch of tires as the electric company's work crew cruised our neighborhood to try and find the problem. I thought the power would soon be on. Ha. It turns out it was an underground problem, and it took until 10:30 before they were able to fix it. In the meantime, my wonderful home teachers brought over a little propane heater to put in my kitchen so my pipes wouldn't freeze, and I had built a fire in the wood stove downstairs for the first time in the ten years I have lived here.

I only had to endure 5 1/2 hours (my neighbor told me yesterday that the power was out when he got up at 5 a.m.) of no electricity in this bitter cold. Thinking back to our first major power outage in Idaho City, this outage counted as nothing. I remember that we were out of electricity for three days that first time in Idaho City, and it was almost as cold there that winter. A news team caught me out shoveling snow off our walkway to the front door and stopped and asked if they could come into the house and interview me for that night's news...about what it was like to be without electricity for so long. I wouldn't let them come inside. Imagine what it is like to go three days without being able to do dishes (it isn't that easy to melt snow for water).

Besides, they should have headed further up the mountain to Placerville, New Centerville, Centerville, and Pioneerville, because those towns were without electricity for seven to ten days. 

It really makes me appreciate electricity!

Here's some more pictures I took Sunday after the electricity came back on and I took Blew with me to return the propane heater:

Come on! Let's run!

The guy's snowmobile trail from the forest service sheds to the groomed trail on Old Chick Creek Road.

Swans on the Henrys Fork of the Snake River by Angler's Lodge

Cold water meets colder air.

Last Chance subdivision and Sawtelle Peak