Well, we are off to a good start…
…Is what I thought when Burny and I pulled into the neighborhood of my cabin in South Lake Tahoe to discover that there was no power.
It was Wednesday; Two days before New Year’s Eve and as to be expected, things were not going to go smoothly in the family cabin by the lake!
Since some of you will know absolutely nothing about our lovely cabin in Lake Tahoe, let me give you some back story:
First of all… my mother’s family purchased this cabin in the 70’s, but they were only going to be half owners. The other owners of the cabin were to be my mother’s husband’s parents. What a perfectly magical place for the extended family to share! At least it was… for the three years that the marriage lasted. They say a diamond is forever… well that’s crap. But let me tell you what IS forever… an owner partnership. Forever and ever!
So needless to say, the two families have not always been the best with communication since the divorce. And of course, that means that the cabin is the one to suffer. The poor, poor cabin.
Now, my grandmother was always on top of things when it came to our beloved getaway. She kept it clean. She kept the animals out. She had a system so the pipes didn’t freeze… and then she died. And since then, things have really gone down hill. And I’m not even exaggerating when I say it should be condemned.
My uncle, for example, says that he is ‘scared’ to go up there. Not because of ghosts or anything actually scary, but because he fears that he will either burn alive inside of it due to the poor wiring, or suffocate due to the poor gas piping, or the cabin will literally just fall down on top of him… and quite frankly, any or all of these things are a very real risk when you stay there.
The roof is leaking which causes the ceiling tiles (probably made of asbestos) to mold, disintegrate and crumble away. The animals get into the crawl space and chew their way in as well, which causes the whole crumbling process to speed up. The walls are molded from flooding from broken pipes. The pipes break because they freeze because the plumber must have been high when he plumped the place. The carpet is stained to high heaven and the furniture is worse than a garage sale. AND the tree in the backyard has now grown into the house and is literally pulling the house off its foundation.
Why do I go there? Because I love it. Why do I love it? Because it’s the last place that has been around since I was a kid. I’ve moved a bunch and my grandparents are all gone… this is the last thing that reminds me of being a kid. And I love it. And despite all its giant mess and headache, I would lay down in front of it before I would let anyone bulldoze it over.
And when I say ‘anyone’ I mean my family. They have had it. It’s just a headache to them. They don’t care anymore. And I know my grandmother would roll over in her grave if she saw the place now. And I feel guilty for that.
But regardless of it all, I love that place. And quite frankly, it’s perfect for a weekend of partying. It’s a great size, lots of beds, no one notices a new stain on the carpet! What more could we ask for…
Well…
Power.
So Wednesday, Burny and I were running around at our house trying to leave in time to get to the cabin before sundown. We were meeting PCharm and AllIsFrank at the cabin that night and we wanted to get everything up and running before they got there. In the winter we have to fully winterize everything each time we leave so it takes some time to get things heated up and the water running and all that fun stuff.
Of course, we got a late start, and it was already dark by the time we were pulling into the neighborhood of my cabin. And by dark I mean the sun was down AND the neighborhood was down. No lights. Anywhere. Shit.
Wednesday was supposed to be the beginning of a pretty hefty storm. It’s always hard to trust the weather man, but you don’t want to mock him either by being unprepared. So even though the storm hadn’t hit yet like they had been anticipating, it was DANG cold up there!
So cold, in fact, that surprise surprise… the pipes were frozen.
Frozen pipes and no power… off to a commanding start, if I do say so myself!
Burny unloaded the car and shoveled the drive way just enough, in the pitch dark, so that we could get our 4 wheel drive Jeep over the snow bank and out of the way of the snow plow. We made a second little slot right next to us for PCharm’s 4 wheel drive truck as well. And then Burny made a fire…
And that my friends, was all the ‘getting things set up’ that we could do.
Once we got the heaters going- thank GOD they run on gas and not power- we made a run to the grocery store to get some candles. That old of a cabin and there were only TWO candles in the whole place. I mean, come on! Be prepared! Lucky for us, just a few days after Christmas… all holiday candles were 50% off! Gotta catch a break somewhere!
So we made it back to the cabin just in time to light up the candles, which immediately made the cabin smell like holly and cider, before PCharm and AllIsFrank pulled up.
“Welcome to the 17th century” was how I greeted them. I wish I were joking.
One thing that we had planned that had not yet be interrupted was the fact that we were going to head out to Chevy’s to have dinner. As a matter of fact, that plan only looked more and more amazing as the time approached. Chevy’s was on the side of town with power… and heat.
And Chevy’s… as always… was delicious. We ate our fill, hoped and prayed that the power and water would magically be working by the time we got home, but ultimately pulled back into a pitch dark neighborhood. Brilliant.
The fire had died while we were at dinner and it was back to freezing in the cabin. The one working heater was hardly enough to heat up a giant house and with the power outage, we couldn’t plug in any space heaters either. It was rough, I assure you. But we improvized. We pulled the dinning room table out of the dinning room and right up next to the fire. We all stayed in our winter gear and we tried to ignore the fact that we could see our breath in the air.
Night one: we played poker by candle light at the dinning room table… in the living room… by the only real heat source. If that’s not the 17th Century, then I don’t know what is.
At about 1am, we retired into our separate- and freezing- bedrooms. About 5 minutes after laying down… the power came on. Great… just when my eyes were adjusting to the darkness away from the fire… the blinding bathroom light pops on. Like I need power when I’m sleeping!
Either way, it was a welcoming sight… light. The boys, who were planning to wake up and go play poker, made a plan to wake up even earlier and begin de-frosting the frozen pipes in the shed by way of my hair dryer. Clearly we have devised many plans to unfreeze pipes… unfortunately for the first night… all those plans included electricity.
But alas… it would seem like our luck was changing. We knew that the frozen pipe was the pipe leading to the water heater. If we could just get that unthawed, we could have hot water. Hot water meant showers and showers meant 21st century!
Things were looking up!
Day two!
Burny’s alarm went off at about 7am. And 7:10. And 7:20. And 7:30. I don’t honestly think he was that tired… I think it was the freezing room that kept him pushing snooze.
The one saving grace of the cabin was the heater in the back room- where Burny and I were sleeping. We had quickly given the one good space heater to PC and All because the heater in the back room could throw some heat. Even in the dead of winter I would end up nearly naked by the morning, having shed all my clothes throughout the night. It got hot in there.
But not this time…
As Burny and I were falling asleep after the power had come back to life… we couldn’t help but notice that the heater was making a funny noise. I couldn’t put my finger on what the sound was, and I didn’t feel like I was in any danger… but it just didn’t sound right. As a matter of fact, it sounded like the dang thing was just giving up.
And by morning, it was all too clear that that was exactly what was happening. That damn thing… our last hope for true warmth… had died. And the room was icy. I don’t want to exaggerate- as I never do- but there was frost on the INSIDE of our windows. It was totally ridiculous.
And the thought that a warm shower was not in my immediate future did not start my morning off on the right foot.
Finally, PC and Burny got up and started hair drying the pipes in the shed. I shutter to think how cold it was out there. Bless those boys… bless them. And lucky for them, they hardly had to spend any time out there at all! It only took a few minutes to get the pipe thawed! Burny came in to give me the good news and I couldn’t help but feel totally confident that our weekend was going to turn out alright after all.
That lasted about 3 minutes…
The shed was not the only frozen pipe. Once the water heater began to fill we quickly realized that only the small, outdated, and hardly functioning bathroom was getting hot water… the rest of the house, including the much bigger, warmer, non-spider infested bathroom with the full shower, was only getting freezing cold lake water.
Awesome!
“Don’t worry! It will thaw in no time,” Burny tried to calm me. But I knew better! I knew that there was a poker game somewhere warm that had his name all over it… and the girls were not invited!
I was tempted to go home, I’m not going to lie. I live about 20 minutes from my cabin on the Nevada side, but that would kind of defeat the whole ‘get away’ idea. And I’m not much of a morning person, so nothing was sounding like a good plan! I didn’t want to drive, I didn’t want to get out of bed, I didn’t want Burny to gamble… but I DID want a freakin warm shower! I was pissed. I was just pissed at my cabin the same way my family was pissed at it.
And then I decided to knock it off!
PC had already left for the poker game and Burny had stayed back. He was no fool. He could see that his lovely and adoring wife was on the verge of a serious melt down… or freeze down would be more appropriate.
But alas, I decided that I was not going to be ‘that girl’ and I agreed to take Burny down to the casinos to meet with PC. It didn’t hurt that we would be passing a Starbucks on the way. I figured that one shower WAS in fact, working… the hideous, coffin-shaped shower, yes, but there was hot water. And I could make do.
I was mainly afraid of a pipe breaking through the wall while Burny was away. I’ve never seen it happen, but my mom had told me horror stories; pipes breaking right through the wall, pipes breaking inside the walls, and on and on. It didn’t sound like something I was mentally in the state of mind to be dealing with. But the more I woke up, the more I realized that no matter who was around… we were going to have to call a plumber in an emergency and I could do that as well as anyone. So AllIsFrank and I drove Burny down to stateline, and All went in and grabbed us both some warm drinks and a snack.
As we pulled back up to the cabin, PC called All and told her that both he and Burny had already lost the tournament. It had been 15 minutes!! That’s $40 I’ll never see again. They were on their way back to the cabin. I figured that with them in route, I would probably survive any trauma I would experience while showering in the coffin shower.
I stripped down and jumped in.
In all the years that we have owned this cabin… which include all the years of my life… I have never showered in this shower. As a matter of fact, the only person in my family that I ever knew who showered in that shower was my grandma. And every single time she showered in there, the door got stuck closed on her and one of us would have to go in there and let her out. You never, EVER want to see your grandma naked in a coffin shower, I promise you that.
And yes, that is the visual I had as I turned on the water and shut the door.
That shower is old. I am talking old, old. First of all, as I was showering, I noticed a black widows nest in the corner… just chillin. I mean, we neglect the parts of the cabin that we use regularly… the parts we don’t use… like that shower… well, they end up getting rented out by critters and other non-humans.
If I wasn’t showering quickly when I saw that, I certainly picked up the pace. And let me also just say to you that I barely escaped that coffin shower with my nipples! That water pressure, coming out of those tiny, tiny, clogged up holes… it is piercing! Absolutely fierce! When I stepped out and looked in the mirror, it looked like I had been given raspberries all over my body!
And then of course I had to run through the unheated house to my room, which under normal circumstances would be way over heated if the heater was working… but no. This was the 17th century New Years! No heat. Just freezing cold clothes on my raspberried body.
But man… there is just something about a hot shower… it doesn’t really matter how you get it, you are a changed person after it.
So on day two, Thrusday, we now had one working toilet, but it was not in the same bathroom as our one working shower. We did have power but we had zero working wall heaters. We did have one decent space heater and a great fire going though. That was a plus. And we were well packed for the upcoming storm, which had in fact hit over night.
I do want to mention that despite all the drama inside the cabin… outside… it was stunning.
We bundled up in our snow clothes and headed out into the winter wonderland!
Our original plan was to build a snowman but not even the snow was going to cooperate with us that weekend! Fresh powder does not grab onto itself. And you can’t make a snowman out of snow that won’t ball up! So we improvised yet again and we decided to take a walk down to the nearby meadow.
I have to tell you, the meadow is one of my favorite places on earth. Especially in the winter. It is just breathtaking! It’s so peaceful and vast and stunning. It looks like a painting, no matter what time of day or year.
As we walked, we marveled over the snow-covered trees. The storm had clearly come from one direction. Every single tree was white from root to top on one side, and once you passed the trees and looked back the other way… there was no trace of snow on them. It was pretty amazing.
After our toes and our fingers were successfully frozen (and our noses chapped… don’t you hate when your nose starts to run but all you have to wipe it with is your gloved hands and then your nose gets raw??), we headed back to the cabin to make dinner. And what an amazing dinner it was, I might add!!
We still only had hot water in the one bathroom, but we did have electricity, and with electric appliances… although outdated… we were in good shape. The boys, bless their hearts, cooked All and I a delicious meal. In all fairness, All helped too. She made the pasta. I just say the boys cooked it so that I don’t feel like I was the only one who didn’t help, but really that’s exactly what happened. I would also like to say that it’s because I was working, and even though that is true, I probably would have still found a way to make myself look busy so as to avoid cooking. I’m just not a cook! I probably would not have been much help anyway.
That night, night two, we enjoyed both regular AND Elk steak. If you’ve never had Elk, I encourage you to do so. It’s quite delicious! We also had pasta and red sauce. Oh yes, and don’t forget the amazing cheesy, garlic bread. That was my request and it might have been my favorite part. So yes, I did contribute to dinner.
After dinner (which was still enjoyed in front of the fire… even though we had electricity back, the heat situation was still sketchy), we played the game of Life. You know, the board game.
And I have to say that I took a tip from my real life and I decided to just start with my career. AllIsFrank and PCharm went to college first. Basically, we learned really quickly that going to college just gave you a late start in the game, and although college did dictate your career… it did not dictate your income. That game of life is surprisingly realistic!
Burny won. Again, surprisingly realistic.
Night two, even though we knew that the wall heater in our bedroom was broken, we still gave up the one decent space heater to All and PC. Even though All promised that she was, in fact, a beacon of warmth and she swore that she kept all who were near her warm. Despite all that, I figured that our room would still stay warmer. There was absolutely no logic behind that decision, and quite frankly, we were absolutely wrong. Burny had the sense to put an extra blanket on our bed and thank God he did. I shutter to think what might have become of us without it.
In the morning, All informed me that they ended up turning off the heater because they were so warm in their room. Oh really? Awesome.
Day three: Friday.
We woke up late. Not necessarily because we were tired, but more because it was just too dang cold to get out of bed. With no working heaters, over night the temperature in the house plummeted to below freezing. First person up had to get a fire going and what not. Basically first person up had to sacrifice themselves to the elements… preparing the way for the rest of us.
I decided not to think too much about it and I just jumped right into the coffin shower. It wasn’t going to really make any difference how long I contemplated it. Any way you sliced it, it was going to blow. It was going to suck, and it was going to be freezing cold no matter what time of day I finally broke down and did it.
Now I need to make a point of saying that I am not one of those girly girls, who can’t go a day without showering. That’s not the case at all. I just have that type of really thin, really greasy hair that is absolutely disgusting if it does not get washed. Even when I’m camping (which I love), I don’t always shower, but I do have to wash my hair in the faucet at some point. (And yes, campers, I do know that that is not allowed. Sue me).
So I took my second shower with the black widow spider and yet again, nearly lost a nipple. But again, it all almost felt worth it for that one split second after you turn off the water and before you step out into the arctic… the moment where you feel really, really warm for the first time in ages.
After my shower, the rest of the crew followed suit. Burny was last in line and although he said he had hot water… I wonder if that was really the case. He said he was just singing… but it sounded like a wounded yeti coming from that shower! I do believe he took a freezing cold shower, poor kid.
And after he was fully clothed again, he got to work devising a plan to get the hot water running. We knew that the hot water was frozen on its way to the kitchen area. We had no hot water in the sink. So we turned on the oven, and opened the door, both to heat up the wall behind the oven and to hopefully heat up the kitchen a little too while we were at it. We also took the one working space heater and magically shoved it under the sink and turned it up full blast. If nothing else, we figured that we could maybe catch the place on fire, collect the insurance money and start from scratch.
Mr. and Mrs. Gator showed up that day, in their 2 wheel drive sedan. Friday yielded a surprisingly clear day. No chains, no problem. And probably the most surprising was the lack of traffic coming up the hill on New Year’s Eve. South Lake Tahoe is kind of a hot spot for young partiers on New Years.
Either way, they showed up midday and were immediately freezing. They are from Florida, so anything below 75 is winter to them. It was probably for the best that they didn’t make it up any earlier. We really might have lost them in those first two nights.
The girls; All, myself and Mrs. G volunteered to run the errands for the day. I had been craving stuffed crust pizza ever since I saw a commercial for it earlier in the week and so I convinced the group to jump on board with my craving. So we headed out to pick up the pizza. On the way, we stopped by a smoke shop to get some coals for the Huka, and the grocery store to get some more fire wood. That fire was our only hope for survival at this point, and we weren’t about to chance running out of fuel.
Under normal circumstances, those three errands would have taken around 15 minutes to complete. Not in SLT on NYE. Between the snow, the bad drivers, the traffic and the road conditions… we were gone nearly an hour. And I have to just take a minute to back up real quick and brag about my amazing winter driving skills. When we were leaving the neighborhood to head out on the town, we were nearly killed in an accident. The roads in neighborhoods are always much worse than the main roads. They are hardly plowed, and even when they are, they are icy as all get out. You have to drive slow and you have to start breaking for a stop sign about half a block away from the white line.
I guess no one gave this random asshole that memo!
We had the right away, no stop sign, and he was approaching in his 4 wheel drive Toyota on our right. His road was going to dead-end into ours. I am always aware of other cars on the road, especially under those conditions, and I swear to you it looked like he was slowing down. And then, at the last-minute, it was as if he decided that not only was he NOT going to stop at the stop sign before turning left, but that he was going to purposely slam into our car. Now, I only say he meant to do this on purpose because as I swerved out of the way, nearly crashing into the snow bank on the other side, we saw him LAUGHING! Maybe it was nervous laughter yes, but it looked like malicious laughter! To be honest with you, I can not believe we escaped that collision. I was bracing for impact for sure! It looked like he was going to slam right into the front right corner of our car, and when we avoided that, I thought that our Jeep was just too long to avoid being slammed into all together. But somehow, magically, we escaped.
And I didn’t even get to use the horn. I never remember to use the horn!!! Burny, however, never has trouble remembering to use that particular safety feature.
Okay, so we got our errands done and headed home. We had assigned the boys one task while we were gone: Shovel the driveway so that the Gators could pull their car in without getting stuck. As we pulled up to the house, the sedan was still in the street and it looked as if that one simple task had not yet been competed. None of us girls were surprised by that, but as it turned out… we had to eat our words when we got out and realized that it only LOOKED like the driveway had not been shoveled. In fact, it had. Whoops!
And then, when we walked inside there was one MORE surprise! We had nearly completely moved back into the 21st Century! The water from the kitchen sink was running, and there was steam! Hot water!! Our heater under the sink plan had been successful! Thank the lord! Too bad I hadn’t held out a few more hours on that shower… I could have enjoyed a full sized, non-nipple piercing shower! Oh well…. maybe in 2011!
After enjoying our delicious stuffed crust pizza, the six of us sat down to yet another game of Life. This time, I might add, both All and PC started in their careers instead of going to college. The Gators… not so much. Sometimes you just have to learn some lessons the hard way, right America?
After Life, (no pun intended) we played some speed scrabble before heading out to get some dinner. Yes, all you do is eat and play games when you are at my cabin, it’s true! We ate Snowflake Burger. If you don’t know what that is, you haven’t lived. It’s right on Lake Tahoe Blvd (aka Hwy 50) and it is life changing. We try to make a point of eating there every single time we stay the night at the cabin. It’s just that good.
As we ate our meal, I entertained the group with my ghost story. Burny had heard it of course, but the others hadn’t. They had heard ABOUT it of course, but they had never actually heard the play by play. Truly, it is not just a story you can tell whenever anyone requests it. It takes a good hour to tell and it can’t be broken up into parts. Not to mention it really takes it out of me to tell it in full, and the crowd is always a little different afterwards. It’s not really a tell in a scary cabin at night kind of story, but I figured it was New Years and we were still going to go out and by the time we all went to bed, it would be pretty far removed from our mind.
Yes, it’s that real and that scary.
And yes, that is why I have been unable to blog about it. It’s going to be quite the epic blog. I need to make sure I can allot it the appropriate amount of time and pay the appropriate amount of attention to detail.
I digress… so I told my story which lead to other stories and experiences which lead to us being slightly behind our 10pm departure time. Departure time for where? Stateline of course! That is where the magic happens at midnight in South lake Tahoe.
The girls started getting read at around 9:30! And that is perhaps the best thing about New Year’s in South Lake… if you are a smart girl (and I say that because unfortunately there are many, many dumb girls walking around at midnight) you dress for the snowy, freezing weather. That means you wear lots of layers, you don’t have to worry about what you’re wearing or how your hair looks because everything is covered! You wear a coat, a beanie, gloves… the whole thing. Us ‘getting ready’ simply meant putting on layers.
I left the house with leggings under my jeans. Three pairs of socks under my snow boots. Two tank tops, covered with two long-sleeved shirts and a sweatshirt AND a winter vest. Two pairs of gloves and a scarf. Top it all off with a hat and I was set to go! It was quite a process though, I assure you!
I point out that there were a lot of dumb girls walking around that night, but more accurately, they were suicidal. When we got out of the car at 10:30, it was about 10 degrees out. And yet, before we even got out of the car we saw a girl walking… well, I’m not sure if you can call it ‘walking’ exactly as she was literally being held up by her male escort… and she was wearing the tiniest little dress I’ve ever seen, complete with sequins of course, and the biggest most incredible high heels that I’ve ever seen on a real person. And by ‘real person’ I mean ‘non-stripper’ although I can’t be sure that she wasn’t a stripper. As a matter of fact, just her walking down the street was literally exposing her under parts so perhaps she is not a ‘real person’ after all. Either way, those heels on that ice= dumb. I won’t even go into how dumb the outfit was.
And unfortunately, she was not the only dumb girl out there. I saw a lot of skin, none of which was my own or anyone in MY group. The only skin you could see on any of us, was our nose and eyes! When it’s 10 degrees… I don’t care what day of the year it is… you wear clothes!! And a lot of them. And truth be told, even with all of my layers… I would have stood a better chance getting laid than any of those tramps. I mean really, you’re just being a tramp when you’re out there dressed like that.
But I’ll end that tangent there!
This year was my very first sober New Years! No! I am not pregnant! I just had a rough night on December 10th, the night of my husbands work holiday party and I’ve given up drinking for 2011. I do hope to get prego this year so it kind of works out anyway. So yes, I was sober. And Burny had to work in the morning so he was sober. And Mr. Gator doesn’t really drink. And so basically, the sober vibe just kind of took over the group early in the weekend and the six of us were walking into this crowd of drunken people with our eyes wide open.
And what a sight it was.
The two highlights were:
The big fight we saw about 5 minutes into being there. There were two separate duo’s going at it in the middle of the street. Don’t worry! The crowd parted an adequate distance to make way for the battle. But as much as I enjoy watching fights, the best part about this particular one was the solo guy who was pantomyming a fight… with no one. He was clearly drunk and he was clearly fighting no one… but he was in the clearing all the same. And he was very involved in that fight with no one. It was kind of amazing.
The other amazing thing came just before the clock struck midnight. A man decided that the most awesome thing he could do would be to climb the traffic light at the border between Nevada and California. And he really had the support of the crowd until her got himself to the top and became a 12 year old boy. He straddled the street light so it looked like the traffic light that came out over the street was his very large penis. Very mature.
It was at that point that the crowd turned on him. At first it was snowballs that they threw. Then we could tell that the snowballs were more like iceballs. And for a completely wasted crowd, everyone had really good aim. And then the iceballs became garbage… and bottles. It got ugly quickly. And it wasn’t until he took an iceball directly to the face that he decided to climb down.
Some people get their five minutes of fame… for him it was about a minute, 30. Max. And I’m pretty sure he got arrested upon returning to earth.
Now, because we were among the only sober people down at stateline on this particular evening, we wanted to find a really good place to watch the clock strike midnight. And I mean that figuratively. There is no clock. There is no countdown. And for a place that is so frequented at New Year’s Eve, you would think that they would have remedied that situation by now. But alas, each year there is a general cheer that begins at about 11:58pm and lasts til about 3 after. I guess it just depends on your clock as to when you join in in the cheering.
So because we wanted a vantage point to survey the situation, and because immersing ourselves in the crowd of people gave us the exact opposite of a vantage point of anything, we decided to climb up on a narrow snow berm, brought to us thanks to the snow plow on the California side of the intersection. We immediately deemed it ‘New Years Mountain.”
New Years Mountain is pictured behind the people above.
And New Years Mountain gave us a wonderful view of the mass of people, demonstrated below…
It was from New Years Mountain that we were able to survey the brilliant penis man… you can see the street light in the pictures as well. And we were also able to judge people from New Years Mountain. And judge we did. Ladies and gentlemen, we spent the final moments of 2010 judging the heck out of strangers. We pointed openly at the severely intoxicated. We laughed at the outrageously skimpy outfits that continued to appear. We rolled our eyes as the marijuana smell creeped out of the crowd… only on the California side of course. Yes… we judged them all. And it made me feel much better about myself on New Years Mountain.
New Years Eve is just not the same when you are sober. We were just totally lost and out of place. We didn’t want to spend $10 each on a strand of marijuana shaped beads, and we didn’t have to show our private parts to anyone… so there really wasn’t a lot for us to do once 2011 had officially started.
We were freezing cold, we knew that much. But we didn’t feel like we could go straight home either. So we compromised by going into the casino, where as you can see, the crowds were much less….
… and we got ourselves a delicious hot chocolate at America’s favorite coffee shop… open past midnight! And if you can imagine it, there was NO LINE!!!
We returned home, unable to successfully blend in after that. We saw a man being carried by his arms and legs, face down, by the police; followed by a girl in the most skimpy outfit of the entire night and we just knew… 2011 had already been tainted enough. We walked to the car and drove home and went to bed. We didn’t even play a board game.
The following morning, New Year’s Day, Burny had to work. He woke up early and headed off into the cold 2011 morning, before any of the rest of us had even begun to stir. At nearly 11am, obviously not because I was hung over, I called AllIsFrank from my room. She laughed when she answered, but she was not braving the cold either and therefore had no room to speak on my laziness. I asked her if someone was in the back shower. She said she didn’t think so…
But I heard water running….
I hung up and told her I would see her in a few minutes, but I remained in my bed listening. The sound I was hearing was definitely water running. And that was never a good sign when no one was in the shower. Not in my cabin anyway.
So I dragged myself out of bed, bundled up and headed towards the source of the noise. It led me to the infamous shed. The flooded shed, I quickly realized. Apparently, the pipe leading from the water header to the kitchen sink was not the only pipe that had been frozen. Two faucets in the shed, which we would normally have closed before turning on the water were still wide open, and now, had apparently thawed out. And these two, tiny faucets were absolutely drenching everything in the shed. There was at least a few inches of standing water on the floor and to my complete dismay, I realized that the water was steaming. OUR HOT WATER!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
I ran back in the house and turned off the water source for the entire house so that I could figure out what was causing the problem. Originally, when I looked into the shed, all I could see was water spraying everywhere. I didn’t immediately take in that the water was coming from open faucets. In my cabin, you have to immediately assume the worst: broken pipes!
I went to PCharm and AllIsFrank’s room and knocked. We were back to the 17th Century. I asked PC to come out into the shed while I turned the water back on so that we could diagnose the problem. He quickly saw that the water was coming from the faucets and turned them off. Problem solved, right? I wish!!
The inches of water on the floor had soaked the pilot light on the hot water heater! It was out and it wasn’t re-lighting. No. Hot. Water.
We were finally able to use the full shower the day before, right after I had already showered in the coffin shower, and it was gone just as quickly as it had come. No one even got the chance to see how wonderful a full shower could feel!
It took us half the day to get it lit, and by that point, we had already given up on showers. I mean, what was the point? The jig was up!
We spend our first day in 2011 walking around the shops at stateline, wishing we had more money to spend in 2011 than we had had in 2010. PCharm successfully lost another $50 playing poker.
After that, we returned to the cabin, made a delicious stoffers lasagna and some more cheesy, garlic bread and played some more board games by the fire. While we played we discussed the state of the world… I assure you, things aren’t looking any better for us in 2011 than they had in 2010. Probably worse, we all decided.
The two couples packed their cars up and left between 1am and 4am in the morning to beat the traffic down the hill back to the valley.
I woke up alone. I cleaned the cabin and packed the car. I headed back to my 21st Century house in Nevada before I even tried to brave the shower.
Burny said this of the weekend: At least when you’re camping you don’t expect to have a shower or a working heater. That’s why this is so much worse.
So true.
Happy New Year!
Adventures of a twenty-something! 