Ice Storm '08

When I was in college in Orono, Maine over 10 years ago, we had this CRAZY ice storm at the beginning of the second semester of my senior year. My roommates and I had come back to our house after Christmas break to only lose power after a day of being back. We survived the first night with beer, Scrabble and LL Bean sleeping bags only to run for cover the next day at any house with a wood stove (no one had any power for DAYS in the state). It was kind of fun because our classes were cancelled for a week and we went from home to home visiting whoever had a woodstove. (At least in retrospect it was fun...I may have been totally miserable at the time - but the story is better told as a *fun* story).


Fast forward to 2008. Ryan and I went to dinner last Thursday with our best buds, Scoop (real name: Scott) and Kate. We hadn't seen them in a few months which is rare for us, so it was nice to catch up. It was starting to get a bit icy outside so Ryan and I headed home. At 4am, some trees fell right outside our bedroom window onto the power lines causing a transformer to explode and scaring the heck out of us. Consequently, our power and the traffic outside came to a dead stop. Then the chainsaws started because they had to cut those trees up and get traffic through for the morning commute. We thought we would only be out of power for a few hours because we live in the state's biggest city and we NEVER lose power. (Not like when I was growing up and we would lose power if the wind went the wrong way... and off the topic but ....we had a well...which meant we couldn't use the water either..) So, anyhoo, although we never lose power...this time we were very wrong.


Luckily, I had a casual day and the company Christmas party on Friday and I wore a baseball cap to work. We didn't have enough hot water for a hair wash so I went for the body wash only. So, I get to work and come to find out - EVERYONE has lost their power and there are a heck of a lot of baseball caps around. Don't you just LOVE hearty New Englanders? Where else could you have an ice storm with over 800,000 people out of power and still everyone shows up for work?


While coming home from work, I called Ryan who advised we were still out of power and it wasn't looking good. We thought maybe we could make it through the night with some wine, games and lots of blankets when Kate and Scoop called and said they had power!!! They graciously invited us over and also welcomed Coodie with open arms... We packed up our stuff, headed over and had SO much fun with our best buds! Kate usually takes care of Coodie when we are gone anyway, so he already loves her. This made his transition a lot easier. (I know, he is spoiled rotten!)

Here are some photos of the weekend...

One of the causes of our power loss...this tree remained perched precariously over the road for several days:

A view of Route 93 South on Saturday...keep in mind that all of the white you see is ice as we had not yet had any snow:

Here is Cood with one of his (and our) favorite people, Kate:

Coodie is totally freaked out by the lobsters:

He loved hanging out on their fridge while we played games:

And, here is Coodie..so excited to see Dad!

He also loved relaxing under their Christmas tree:

We had some great meals (Thank you, Kate!), played some super fun games and overall had such a great weekend even tough we were bummed about our power being off. We will always remember that weekend!

We did get our power back after several nights and had brother and sister-in-law Mark and Allison and kids Chelsea and Hunter over for a few nights as they still didn't have power. Allison and I were able to relax and catch up while Mark and Ryan played some PS2 and Chelsea and Hunter played with the Wii.

Overall, although I realized how dependent we are for power, I also realized how much fun it can be to hang out with family and friends when we least expect it. Also, it is nice to remember how many people we have there for us when we need it.