Part 3 "Is There an Intersecting Street?"

"Ummm . . . No Tim, there is no intersecting street. We are on an ISLAND with a view of the lake. There is only one road running in front of the cabin!"

In true Lake Superior fashion, a fast and furious storm blew in on Sunday after noon. OMG. Chaos ensued. Let’s see. Gee, it looks like a storm is coming. I am not too worried because when a bad storm is coming, Cousin Buddy puts he vehicles in the garage. His vehicles are out. Hmm . . . getting a little windy. I will call Ron; have him check the radar for me, see how long this is going to last. Then it hit. The worst storm I have ever experienced on the island. Yikes . . While on the phone, “Ron trees are falling; pray they don’t hit the vehicle. There goes another tree. Are you checking the radar? Check it faster! There goes another tree. Put The Girl on the computer (our 14 year old daughter) she is faster on the computer!” I should mention I was shouting into the phone at this point. (The photo was taken from inside before the storm hit, please note it is not a setting sun, it is 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon).

CT . . . “CB you have to look at this, there are trees all over down here in the back, trees are falling.” I should mention that CT was racing from one end of the cabin to the other looking out windows watching trees fall as though Paul Bunyan was waving his mighty axe.

ASJ . . . “Okay ladies I think we all need to get into the hallway where there are no windows and assume the position.” Yeah right . . . we all ignored her and ordered her to grab the chocolate, the yarn and go to the hallway by herself. She ended up opening the peanut M&M’s (my choice) as the melee of the storm swirled around us. Annie also was the one who noticed that it was raining so hard (horizontal I might add) that the rain was shooting in under the door in the back hall. NK and ASJ threw towels down and kept the flood waters at bay.

NK . . . The quiet one said nothing too much. She watched as the rest of us raced around and ate M&M’s. She looked and nodded as she went from window to window following CT. She very quietly helped Annie wipe up the water.

Storm over . . . As you can see we have a situation. The cabin is surrounded by trees (we may have to re-evaluate that) and no there is no way out. BTW did I mention that this particular tree also took out the power? ACK! Yeah, now what. Three phone calls to the power company (we did manage to get Tim twice), and a very nice man stopped by and said “the line is dead you can cut up the tree.” Umm, that would be a 50 foot tree lying across the driveway. By this time Cousin Buddy’s chain saw blade had broken. Yeah, right. Good thing we have food because we could be here for awhile. Next thing I know while I am conferring with Buddy, and CT and NK are down the road watching the Power Man trying to get the trees off the lines farther down the road, ASJ, our intrepid little friend had wandered down the road a little farther and found another Hero in our midst. Our new best friend Tony Sackett. Tony’s line of work is trees, and the removal there of. “Sure no problem I can have that cut up for you in no time!” (I should mention that Cousin Lorraine needs to be nicer to Tony, her neighbor. Tony was a Good Samaritan in the truest sense of the term.) Tony cut up the tree, we hauled it off (mostly CT & NK, they were awfully good sports about the whole thing) and WaLa . . . we were free (still no power). No I know that this sounds like this went fairly quickly. Not so much. We are talking hours, storm was at 1:00 in the afternoon, and tree removal was at about 6:30 or so. We then went straight to town and the bar. Had a couple of drinks and nachos and went back to the dark cabin. Sat in the porch and waited. The trucks finally came, and by 12:05 a.m. had power. And I should note that the young man who went up the pole had a very fine booty.

And so ends our trip . . . we did leave early Monday morning. I did not even try the pump again. (My friends were awfully good sports about the whole storm thing, they had to use the out house. And are looking forward to going to the cabin again next year! ) We did stop at Pine Needles on the way home and the Dairy Queen in Hayward. As we now as we contemplate our next trip, we will just have to sit and knit in NK’s new backyard!