We’re in Flagstaff now, “enjoying” a “free” vacation at the Holiday Inn
Express. “Free” because we were given a vacation package as a promotional
distribution, but it turns out that, even though it really is a freebie, it
is still tied with a timeshare and we can get some upgrades if we went to
the presentation. We didn’t, so we’re in the Holiday Inn, not the actual
resort. Still, it’s got free wireless access.
It’s been a long, long day, and a long night before it. Last night, about
6:00PM, we were planning our evening, and thinking about packing, when a
micro-burst blew in and knocked out the power. We lost a tree branch, but
some houses less than a block away lost parts of their roofs, large trees
were upturned, gigantic branches came crashing down and street signs and
basketball goals were bent by the wind. It was also about 110 degrees
outside when the power went out.
It wasn’t long before the inside temperature started to equalize with the
outside and things got nasty. We went out shopping, but as it was Sunday
night, most things were closed. We hung out at the Wal-Mart till they
closed, but still there was no power nor traffic lights in the area when we
got home.
We got hold of the power company and their recording said, “…if you don’t
have power by 1:00AM, call back.”
We all got in our swimsuits and sat outside in the front yard, trying to
catch a breeze until nearly 1 when we called back. The revised estimate was
service restoration by noon. Great.
We decided to abandon the house, but it was too late to call anyone, so we
decided to go to my father’s house while he was out of town. Just as I’d
loaded 75 lbs. of frozen breast milk into the car, an power truck pulled up
a block away, there were the sound of a big switch being thrown and the
power came back on – but only on my side of the street.
They could have done that 10 minutes earlier and I wouldn’t have had to bust
my back.
Of course, the power failure meant we had no opportunity to pack as planned
for today’s trip. Also, I had to get up around 8 to drive to the other side
of town to replace my new Motorola V3 phone (Less than 24 hours old and it
failed catastrophically) before we left town.
It was a rushed morning, but I got my phone, we got packed and got out of
the house by noon.
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