(S)no(w) Expectations

Funny how no heat, no electricity and no running water are not a big deal when you camp across the country for three weeks but are very much a big deal when they happen in your own home.

Yes, snowpocalypse has come to Eugene, Oregon, dumping three feet of the stuff at our house. Everyone on our grid (plus thousands elsewhere in the city and the entire towns of Oakridge and Blue River) are without power, possibly for a week. For us, this means not just no lights (no big deal) and no heat (okay, we have a woodstove and a gas fireplace) but no running water (we’re on a well with an electric pump). Which means no flushing. Oh, and our place is down a steep, quarter-mile access road. So, no access.

Yesterday, as I was emptying the refrigerator and burying food in the snow, heating bottled water on the propane cooktop to wash my face, positioning battery lanterns and candles around the kitchen and hunkering close to the fire, I thought about how “roughing it” was so much fun during our transcontinental Route 20 “we’ve all come to look for America” trip last fall. And how not fun it was now.

And how privileged I am to be able to write this because I am now in a warm hotel room with Internet and a flush toilet.