little-different

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Eveleen Urrey

October 2011 Snowstorm

OK, this is not really a "vacation" post, but this event was certainly big enough to be documented in the blog.

On Saturday, October 29, 2011, Simsbury (along with a number of other towns in Connecticut and western Massachusetts) got hit by a freak Nor'easter that dumped 12.6" of very wet and sticky snow on the region.  Because of the timing of this storm, most of the leaves were still on the trees, giving the wet, sticky, heavy snow plenty of surface area to cling to.  As a result, there was devastating damage in the hardest hit towns because of the number of trees, limbs, branches, etc. that were brought down by the weight of snow on the nearly fully foliaged trees.

The snow started to fall shortly after noon as a few flurries, but we went into the afternoon it started to come down heavier and heavier, and by 3:00pm the roads were already starting to get treacherous.  We lost power at around 3:30pm or so.  Little did we know how long the power outage was going to last!

Outside the garage, 1:30pm.

Outside the garage, 2:30pm.

As the afternoon went on into the evening, the snow just seemed to intensify.  With no power, we also had no heat and no running water in the house.  Not a whole lot to do but ride the storm out.  Sometime in the evening, maybe around 10:00pm or so, we heard a fairly loud cracking sound just outside the back of the house.  I grabbed a flashlight and looked out the windows to find that some of the limbs of our weeping cherry tree had come down on the deck.  Opening up the bathroom window from the master bedroom, I could see the tree and that the falling limbs had just narrowly missed the house.  Also, while the window was open, I could hear the cracking of falling trees and limbs all over the place.  It sounded like gunfire, but not from any single direction.  It was coming from everywhere.

8:30pm - Our only source of light and heat in the house

Eventually, there was nothing else to do but to go to bed.  All night long, we continued to hear cracking sounds from all over the place.

Sunday morning, I was the first one up.  Leaving the bedroom, the first thing I did was look out the window from the upstairs hallway to survey the situation.  The sun had just risen, and the skies were clear.  But the yard was nothing but a blueish white hue from all the snow.  All 12.6" that had fallen.  Looking out the window, I could see a number of broken trees and fallen limbs around the perimeter of the yard.  From that window, I really couldn't see much of the driveway, so I had no idea what was going to actually greet me once I went outside.

The first views Sunday morning from the upstairs hallway window

After a brief walkthrough of the house to make sure there was no apparent damage, I went out to the garage and lifted up the garage door to take a closer peek outside.  Wow!  There was a lot of snow.  I also could tell that our driveway was in pretty bad shape, there were a lot of trees hanging down low over the driveway, as well as some fallen branches across the driveway.  At this point, I knew I needed to go outside and check things out up close.

The view from the garage

I went back inside and suited up: snowpants, jacked, gloves, hat, boots, etc.  I also grabbed Maria's camera because I had a feeling that this was something unprecedented in our 15 years in our house, and needed to be captured immediately for Maria's scrapbook.  What I found is documented in the photos below.

The basketball hoops in the driveway.  Note the large limb that came down just behind them.

The back of the house.  You can see the weeping cherry tree that came down onto the deck.

Another view from just outside the garage, looking west towards the front of our property.

Broken trees along the western perimeter of the yard.

This limb was not completely broken off, but was hanging partially into the driveway.  The break was around 20' high.

Walking down the driveway.  Nothing could drive through this.

Smaller branches blocking the driveway.

A big limb blocking the driveway.

An even bigger limb, hanging down into the yard.

Near the bottom of the driveway, looking down towards the street.  Completely blocked.

Another view from the bottom of the driveway, looking out towards the street.

Looking up to the entrace of our driveway from the street.

Looking north up Highwood

Looking south down Highwood

The street sign at the corner of Highwood and King Phillip.  This is the corner of our property.

This tree was hanging low from our property over the road on King Phillip.  It bounced back up once the snow melted.

This tree was from our neighbor's property on King Phillip.  It was completely blocking the road.

A little further up the street, a very large oak had almost completely uprooted and was also blocking King Phillip.

Two views of our weeping cherry tree on the deck, taken from in the family room.

In the end . . . we were without power in our neighborhood until November 7, 2011.  It came back just before 7:00pm.  A total of around 9 days and 4 1/2 hours.  All the snow had melted before we got power back.  All of it.  Every last bit of snow.  The entire town of Simsbury was out for approximately 72 hours before the first customers got their power back, and I know of some folks in the hardest hit neighborhoods who were out for a full 13 days.  The National Guard was even called in to help clear the roads because many roads were still blocked five, six, even nine days after the storm hit.  Not to mention the downed power and telephone lines that were all over town.  I must have driven under dozens of trees during that time that were leaning over the roads and being held up by lines that had not yet fallen, and I must have also driven over dozens of downed wires at the same time.  Halloween was cancelled by the town and rescheduled to November 10.  Schools were closed for nearly a week and a half, and did not reopen until Wednesday, November 9.

A typical view of Simsbury, two days after the storm

On the ninth day, utility crews from Pennsylvania showed up in our neighborhood to turn the power on

All in all . . . a story we will never forget, but one we hope that we never have to relive.

Maine, Day 3

After a healthy dose of ibuprofin and a brief nap to let it kick in, I was feeling human once again.

Today was beach day. We drove down to Ogunquit Beach rather than take the Campsite's shuttle van to Footbridge Beach so that we would have a little more freedom and discretion for coming and going. We got to the beach at around 11:45am, which put us exactly between low tide and high tide. We started out close to the water but quickly moved back when we saw that the tide was coming back in quicker than we first anticipated.

The boys didn't spend much time in the water today. I briefly took a walk in up to my knees, but that was enough for me. I thought the water was freezing. I ended up huddling under my umbrella away from evil Mr. Sun and reading my book. We ended up staying until close to 3:30pm, when we decided to pack up our stuff and bring it back to the Explorer. Then we took a walk around town.

At one of the little shops we found a painting from a local artist which depicted a couple sitting on a bench in the moonlight overlooking the ocean on the Marginal Way. Way too eerily, it looked like Maria and I, sitting on "our bench" the night we got engaged here 17 years ago. Needless to say, it was a no-brainer purchase. The artist herself ran the store and sold us the painting, enjoying our story.

After a little bit more of walking around, we stopped at a restaurant for dinner (pizza and pasta). That hit the spot after a pretty long day. We were going to go back to the beach for a walk, but the tide was still too high for us to cross the river, so we decided to leave. We ended up going to the mini-golf place to check out their new "human maze". It was pretty tough. John made it through in 8 minutes, I took 12, and Kevin took 13 (because he cheated by crawling under the walls). Maria watched from the observation deck.

Back to camp, and the boys wanted to go to the pool (where I'm writing this from). On the agenda for the rest of the evening are showers for all of us and then some R & R.

Tomorrow, we have to move our campsite to another one around 40 yards away. What a pain that will be. Hopefully the new site opens up early enough that we can get the move done without cutting too much into our last full day here.

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Maine, Day 2

The warnings about possible thunderstorms for Thursday turned out to be for nothing as it was pretty much a sunny but very hot day, at least the early part of the day.

Kevin was always the second one up in the morning, after Dad.

We went to the outlets in Kittery for a couple of hours and got our shopping done. The outlets were as packed as I've ever seen them, just wall-to-wall cars in the parking lots fighting for parking spaces, and wall-to-wall people in the stores.

By the time we got back to the campground, we all wanted to cool off so we went to the pool for a while. We were the only English speaking there, everybody else was French Canadian. Then back to the campsite for dinner (grilled chicken and salad).

After dinner, I took the boys mini-golfing and for ice cream while Maria stayed behind to straighten up. Then a game of Scrabble and bedtime.

It got pretty cool overnight, and for some reason I developed a splitting headache overnight. Now I'm sitting outside writing this while everybody else is still sleeping, and I cannot find the ibuprofin. Not fun.

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Maine, Day 1

Today we started our annual vacation in Ogunquit, Maine. Unlike last year, the drive up was quick and almost uneventful (see below). We left home shortly after 11:30am and hit no traffic issues at all until we hit the normal slowdown as we hit Ogunquit. Just two stops along the way. One in Massachusetts at a Wendy's for lunch, and one as we reached Oguquit as Kevin needed to poop.

As I mentioned, the trip was almost uneventful. It almost turned quite tragic. As we were driving on the short stretch of I-95 that cuts through New Hampshire, there was an either late 60's / early 70's car that was about to pass us on the left. Just as I saw it in my sideview mirror, I saw a lot of smoke coming from behind the car. I thought it was only exhaust until I heard a metallic sound and then a lot more smoke. Then he started to swerve and lose control. It got worse and worse until he eventually did a 270 degree spinout behind me. I was sure that he was going to roll, but lucky for him he didn't. I think what happened was he had a blowout. I saw through the rearview mirror that he was able to safely get off to the side of the road. Pretty damn scary. If he had been even with us or just ahead of us, he could have taken us out. That would have ruined our day for sure.

Anyway.

We (safely) arrived at the campground at around 3:30pm. After we set up the camper and our campsite, we headed over to the pool to cool off, then back to our site for dinner (steaks and tomato salad). Right now, we're sitting around the campfire and the boys are roasting marshmallows. Scrabble is on the agenda for later.

The forecast for overnight and until mid afternoon tomorrow is calling for a chance of thundershowers. So tomorrow might be our Kittery day at the outlets. The forecast for the rest of the week is for perfect weather.

Stay tuned for another update tomorrow.

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Coming Home

We left Southport at 5:45am. We arrived in Simsbury at 8:54pm. 776 miles of driving.

A little longer than we expected. The weather cooperated nicely, the only slowdown that was weather related was down in North Carolina when we ran into a brief cell of very heavy rain that lasted only a couple of minutes. The rest of the trip was fairly dry, just overcast skies with an occasional very light drizzle.

We were making great time until the New Jersey turnpike. Then we hit three separate slowdowns. The first was for around 10 miles for unknown reasons. The second was a little further north due to an accident. And the third was at the George Washington Bridge.

We dropped Lori off in Cromwell at around 8pm and was thinking that we had a clear final 30 minutes or so home. But then we hit traffic on I-91 at the Wethersfield/Hartford line due to an accident. It was at a nearly dead stop. We ended upgetting off 91 and driving through downtown Hartford to get back on 91 just past the Meadows. After being in the car for 14 1/2 hours (and me driving all but around 90 minutes in VA/MD), that was just cruel be be stuck in traffic so close to home. By brain and body started to hit the wall. I was blurry eyed for the final 15 minutes or so of the trip.

But as fun as our vacation was, it's great to be home.

North Carolina, Day 5

Today, we did nothing but hang around the house. I finished my book, and the boys and I finished the jigsaw puzzle we had been working on all week.

Maria and Lori took the boys into town during the afternoon to do a little shopping, and then they went to the pool for a short while. While they were doing that, I cleaned out the car and topped off the gas to get ready for the drive home tomorrow. We're hoping to get an early start . . . up at 5:00am and hopefully on the road by 5:30am or so. We're bringing Lori back to visit her mom, so it will be a brief detour to Cromwell on the way back.

The boys spend part of their final day of vacation with a trip to the pool.

The weather sounds like it will be rainy up the entire east coast, so I'm not quite sure what to expect. Hopefully, it won't be too bad.

North Carolina, Day 4

Another excellent day. We got an early start and sailed out to Bald Head Island, just across the Cape Fear Inlet, to spend the day. We arrived just before 9:30am and Bob got a slip for the day. Then we rented a six person golf cart for our local transportation for the day.

Captains Lori and Bob, and First Mate Kevin set sail for Bald head Island.

Our rental car for the day.

Once we unloaded the boat onto the cart with all our stuff, we headed out to explore the island. We started by checking out the BHI lighthouse ("Old Baldy"). A lot of steps to climb, and a somewhat tight fit to reach the very top, but it was worth the exercise. You could see pretty much the entire island from the top, it was quite a view.

A view of the marina from the lighthouse.

Looking down through the lighthouse at the men.

After the lighthouse, we drove out to the supermarket to get some sandwiches to pack in our lunch. Then it was a fairly long drive out to the beach. What a great beach it was . . . Nice clean sand and clean water. We parked ourselves there for a couple of hours. John and I brought our baseball gloves and played catch for a while. Then Maria and Lori took the boys for a walk up the beach to collect some shells. After that, we sat down to enjoy lunch.

Watch out for that wave, Kevin!

Dad and John play catch.

After lunch, Maria and Lori took another walk, with Kevin tagging along. Bob and I stayed behind with John. The clouds finally broke mid-afternoon and the sun finally made an appearance. When the ladies returned and took a brief rest, we packed up and started driving back towards the marina. We made a brief stop at the Turtle Museum, then went back to the boat. We loaded our stuff back onto the boat and then went back to return the golf cart and buy a couple of souvenirs.

Kevin found a huge conch with an occupant.

The boys had a great time at the beach.

The sail back (completely by engine, since there really wasn't enough wind to sail by) was quite enjoyable with the sun out. The boys and I sat up by the bow for the whole trip back. Then we headed back to the house to relax for the rest of the day.

Tomorrow is our last full day of vacation. We have no plans at all, we're just going to play it by ear. Then we head back to CT on Sunday, a 13 1/2 hour drive.

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