We arrived at my aunt and uncle's lovely little cabin in the woods of Plain, Washington on Christmas Day. It was beautifully covered in snow. The landscape made it difficult to realize how cold it was outside but it was cold. None of that mattered since the cabin was powered by a nice electric central heating system. But see, the thing is an electric heater (and stove, water pump, fire place fan, hair straightener, blow dryer, blender...all the essentials) will only work if there is this fancy little thing called electricity.
See, it was really uncalled for when those trees fell on those power lines because it was right at the part in the movie when Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby had just gotten to Vermont and they were bringing the whole show up three days before Christmas to try to save the lodge from going under. And you know what? It is just not Christmas until I can hear those crazy cats sing, "Gee, I Wish I Was Back In The Army."
Well, the movie we had not, but a White Christmas, yes. It continued to snow and get colder. And an electric water pump meant no showers...or flush toilets. Yay! We all survived the first night and the next morning, still nothing. We drove into Leavenworth, which is a little Bavarian town with all the schnitzel and bratwurst you could ever ask for. We ate breakfast and shopped, but more importantly used every working toilet in the town.
Driving back to the cabin we had high hopes as we saw the Plain Valley lit up and beautiful. Not so much. Still no power at the cabin. It was night time again and it was getting colder.
Family meeting time! Frustrations were high at this point and there are really only so many "Donner Party" jokes that can be made before they all start to sound the same. And lets face it, there would be no drawing straws; the weakest were going to be the first to go.
Our choices were the following:
1. Brave the night. Load up on layers of PJ's and blankets and if there was no power by morning, pack up and leave.
2. Pack up the house and the cars in the dark in 12-degree weather and leave that night.
3. Make more Donner Party jokes.
Everyone was silent. We all looked at each other, huddled around the candlelit table staring at the bags of pretzels and beef jerky we would be eating for dinner. And to everyone's surprise, Grandma, (who was bundled up and looked like the little brother from a Christmas Story at this point) said with passion, "I say we stay!"
So we stayed. And we ate pretzels and beef jerky for dinner. We played Scattergories by candle light. We drank very, very cold wine and beer. We made more Donner Party jokes. It was the best.
And after 30 hours (give or take) we had power again.
I am sure as we re-tell this story as the years go on it will get a little more exaggerated and sound more like we were not just at a cold cabin on Christmas but in the seventh circle of hell. Obviously, we were all fine and we were not in any real danger. One thing I did think about as we were sitting in the dark with blankets wrapped around us was at least we were inside with a roof over our heads and that we had blankets to keep us warm and food and family around us. And when this is all over, we have a home to go to and this trip will be just another funny story to add the the vault and it is not really my life.
I am thankful for that...and that we didn't have to eat Grandma.
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