What A Difference A Week Makes!

Brian and I left on Thursday, February 11th for Ben Avery in Phoenix, to do three full days of teaching. When we left Houston, we were looking at what the weather was going to do. Our weather service was calling for a Winter Storm Warning for Monday. We got to Phoenix and settled in for the next three days.

I woke up really early Friday morning. My thoughts had gone from “arrive in Houston on Monday and slide down the five floors at the airport” (I was on the 5th floor) or “cancel Sunday’s clinic and go home.”

Due to Covid, this year at Ben Avery they were closing at 2:30 PM, so we had already arranged for everyone to show up at 7 AM to get a full day in. When I got to the car, I told Brian my thoughts. By noon we had decided to cancel Sunday and return before the snow and sleet got to Houston. Since we had to stop so early, everyone decided to not stop for lunch and shoot through. This turned out to be a good idea. Everyone had a snack and we stopped for 45 minutes to relax. We got through the day by 2:25 PM.

When we got to the hotel, I got busy changing all our hotels and airplane reservations. Everyone was so nice to let us change days. They’ve had to accommodate so many changes to everyone’s plans due to Covid – even the hotels that usually don’t change anything for you. So, I just told them that Houston was under a winter storm warning. Some had heard that and most had not, but they were willing to change all plans to a day earlier.

Thank goodness.

We were to get into Houston at 1 PM, and I got a text that our flight would be 45 minutes late. That would put us in Houston at 2, and the storm was expected to hit around 3.

We made it and got here a little earlier by 15 minutes. That was just enough to get me down those five flights onto level ground. I had already gone through contingency plans on how to avoid the freeways to get home but didn’t have to use them since the freeways were all open and they had just started sanding them down.

It started raining about half the way home, but I made it and would now be able to sleep instead of waking up concerned about the weather. No one in Phoenix worries about the weather except when it rains… then they don’t get out in it!

The next morning, I sure was glad I was home, as half an inch of snow was on the ground. Even our subdivision told everyone not to drive, since there was ice under the snow. Since we don’t know how to drive in that stuff, we stayed inside.

Gil had gone and gotten his second Covid shot on Sunday and then stopped at the store to stock up on groceries to last us many days. At 8:30 AM on Monday, the power went off, as did the cell service. It was so frustrating not to be able to call and make new arrangements since Gil was to be in San Antonio on Wednesday then on to Marble Falls for the weekend.

Brian to the rescue! He had power, so I was able to text him hotel reservations to cancel them. He canceled them before the deadline to do so. It turned out everything for that week was canceled due to snow and wind and temperatures, and we waited for the power to come back on. Power was off Monday and Tuesday, then came on for a few hours on Wednesday until 7:30 PM. Then it was off again until Thursday at 12:30 AM and stayed on all day Thursday.

How exciting to see the temperature at 43 degrees! The snow didn’t completely melt until Friday. I ventured out to the grocery store and it had very little food left – kind of like after Covid hit, with limited bottles of water and supplies.

As it turned out, we were some of the fortunate ones. We had a gas stove and gas water heater so we could warm up with a hot shower. Sitting in the kitchen with the stove on, we could make it until we got power and turn the heat on.

Between the hurricanes and winter storms, it looks like a Generac is in our future if we can get one!