We returned late last evening from vacation. It was a very nice week and we were able to make some wonderful memories. My favorite part was the fact that my grandmother came along. How many kids get to experience taking a vacation with their great-grandmother? And she is pretty spry for an 81-year-old, let me tell you! The kids got to fish to their heart's content, although sadly there wasn't much "catching" of the fish happening. Most adults (and HT went along) visited Coldwater, MI, where we had spent many, many summers when I was a child. I hadn't been there in 20 years, and it was SO amazing to see all of the changes. Mom stayed home with JR and JC, and discovered a wonderful little ice cream shop. The town in which we stayed had a cute little public beach, and the next town over had an even more amazing public beach, so there was lots of swimming to be done. I think one of the favorite activities for us all was the steam paddle wheel boat ride that we all took in the middle of the week. I LOVED watching my kids' faces as they enjoyed the ride, and even more so enjoyed watching my dad and Grandma enjoy watching the kids' faces. Such incredibly special memories!
Along with the wonderful memories, there were some challenges. For instance, the cottage was not exactly in wonderful condition. The pictures that were posted on the website were clearly many years old. There were so many things that were broken or didn't work correctly (or were just flat out missing) that it was ridiculous. We just "went with it" though, because really what else is there to do? A new owner actually took possession of the house while we were there, and he was a very nice man. Unfortunately, a new well needed to be dug at the end of the week, and that wasn't exactly part of our plans, and at times it was down right inconvenient. It did entertain the kids though, and I'm sure we'll always remember the vacation with the mud and well digging!
Yesterday was definitely a very strange ending to our vacation, and we all mentioned that it was a day we'll never forget! My sister and grandmother had left Thursday, and we were basically just waiting around for the oxygen man to arrive to pick up my dad's tanks before we hit the road. It was a day earlier than originally planned, but tomorrow is a family reunion and Dad was concerned that he'd just be too wiped out if he waited until today to drive home. About 1:30, we noticed that the sky was turning absolutely pitch black. All of a sudden the wind picked up and I'd never seen anything like it! The lake quickly turned into what looked like a small ocean, and the well digger mentioned that you pretty much never see whitecaps on Lake Webster...but there they were! It was raining sideways and the trees were bending and then the hail started. In retrospect I'm really glad I wasn't really aware it had been coming...I'd have been absolutely frantic. In all honesty, we are lucky there wasn't a tornado, or a tree down that would block us in. The power went out right before the rain really started, and as we left we realized that a tree had come down on a major line serving our end of the lake neighborhood. There had also been a sail boat that had its sail snapped off, and we could see chairs that had been on decks blowing around in the lake. We had NO IDEA the widespread damage that was occurring with the storm cells, and I'm so grateful we were driving home BEHIND in, and never had to drive through it. As we drove though, it became apparent that we had just experience something pretty major, and as we drove further away it became even more amazing. There were towns a two hour drive from where we were that had no power (definitely a bad thing when we are hoping to get dinner on the road!) and as my parents drove they saw several overturned semis. The airport here at home recorded a wind gust of 82 mph, and the weather man said he is certain there were gusts over 100 mph in places that just weren't officially recorded. As we watched the news it became evident that this storm had tracked south into West Virginia and Virginia, and in all about two million people were without power. I'm sure that the little lake neighborhood was no where near the top of the priority list as far as being restored, and some people here at home are being told that it could be early next week before their power is restored. According to neighbors our power was out for about four hours, but it came home about an hour before we got home. All along the drive the damage was amazing, and what I found to be the most amazing is that no matter how far we drove, there was still more damage to see! I realize now how very, very luck we were!
Overall, in spite of imperfections and a very dramatic ending to our vacation, we had a wonderful week!
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