Tropical Storm Arthur - the second twelve hours

July 7,2014

Well, we went to bed late Saturday night, after a great hen party on the stormy shores of the Bay. The rain hasn't let up much.  It is really beating down hard, and the winds are fierce.  I fall asleep thinking that water will leak in the trailer tonight, for sure!

The next morning when we get up, we start getting ready to hit the road again. Cece has to go back home.  I have arranged with a friend for her to be picked up half way, which is a two hour drive through the woods. 

We are running around getting things done, when I notice that the two yellow lights are on above the fridge/freezer of the trailer. Baby Bro had told me that would mean the breaker had blown or the electrical current from the utility cord, and I need to fix it, or my food will go bad. So out I go in my pjs, to fix the problem.  I see that I need to press the reset button on the outlet outside the garage, so I unplug the big utility cord, press the reset button, and then plug the cord back in.  WHOOSH! BIG BANG! OMG! I turn around, and see that the grass, or the cord, is on fire!  Not a good idea to plug the cord back in after all, I  think! So I quickly unplug it, run over to the fire and stamp it out.  Then I see that the cord plug, where it was plugged into the other one going to the trailer, is SMOKING!  So I run over to the trailer, unplug the cord attached to it, and run back, gingerly pick up the two extension cords where they were attached, and unplug them.  Whew!  One emergency dealt with.
Then I think, " I need to turn everything off in the trailer.  I am not taking any chances!"

I am NOT going to call Baby Bro.  Poor man, everytime he goes away, something happens. And this isn't the half of it.  I notice in my running around that his truck looks a little lopsided.  Of course, his front driver's side tire is FLAT! 

I decide to call Mid Bro, who is also out of town.  He guides me through shutting everything off; all electricity, propane, you name it, I shut it off.  Actually, where the cord blew and caught fire, was in a few inches of water, and about 8 feet from the propane tanks! That is all I would have needed, for the trailer blow to bits after I have left to take Cece home.

Next I run around getting all the food out of my fridge and freezer in the trailer, and transfering it all to Baby Bro's big beer fridge in the garage. Another thing done!

So it is time to get Cece home.  We set out to take the road through the resources, straight across one side of the province to the other.  I see a few fallen trees here and there, on the other side of the airport, and shades of yesterday's roadblocks pop into my head.  I brush them off, thinking, "No, I am going to be fine!" Twenty-five clicks onto the Resources Road, and I had no sooner thought that, then a sign up ahead says "ROAD CLOSED!"  Maudit! Other cars stop behind me, and we debate whether to turn around or not.  Well, to make a long story short, we all turn around.  Can't take any chances. So here we are, DOUBLING BACK ONCE AGAIN!  I have no cell reception cause we are in the woods, so I have to wait until we are closer to town, to text/call my friend, and let her know we will be going all around the northern part of the province, rather than cutting through. I had tried waving my cell around at the turn around point, but it didn't work. Thank goodness mi amiga hadn't left home yet.

So we set out for the two hour drive, AGAIN!  On our way to our meeting point, about 250 km away, and in the middle of nowhere, I see a bright, new, shiny Acadian flag sign on the lawn of a humble little house. It is so cute! What is even cuter is the name written on the flag. These lawn flag boards are iconic around here this summer, with the Acadian National Congress being held in August.  You see all the old Acadian family names on these flags. What did this one say?  SMITH!! OMG - I laughed so hard!  And across the street, another flag with a good Acadian name I had never heard of - Mannelo!  Sounds Italian to me!  Last time I checked, there were no Smiths or Mannelos on the Expulsion List of 1755!

Cece gets picked up and I turn around for the 200 km drive back.  I decide to do a quick beer run over in to Québec, but of course, you know me with my luck. It is the Salmon Festival, so I deal with a detour going across the bridge into Québec, and a traffic jam to the Midway, through town.  I hit the road, and am home by 4, after having left at 10 that morning.

I no sooner exit my car, then my sista rolls in. She jumps out, and right away says - OMG, look at that tree! Well, the tree was a 30 foot aspen that was totally uprooted and lying behind my Baby Bro's brand new garage!  How it never touched the garage at all, is a freakin' miracle! At it's narrowest point, it is only 8 inches from touching the garage.  My sista starts asking me why I hadn't noticed the tree before? Well, excuse me, but I was busy PUTTING OUT FIRES and preventing the whole place from being BLOWN TO BITS!  Who had time to notice a big, fallen tree?  

So now I start to freak out about the pool. The water level is way too high, so sista calls Baby Bro real calm like, and explains the pool situation. He tells her how to do a backwash, and I stay right out of the whole thing. My Karma is bad, I figure!

I am sitting in his house right now.  I can't sit in my trailer.There is absolutely nothing connected.  I am waiting for him to get home from his getaway weekend with his family.  I am beginning to think that his bad luck has something to do with me, since I seem to be around when it happens. What do you think?  I don't know how many more of these misadventures I can take.  Although truth be told, we have all escaped Tropical Arthur's fury very lightly!   

My friends have started to call me "Only you!", meaning these things only happen to me. Never a dull moment, that is for sure.  My food is the garage, my bed in the trailer, my clothes here and there, but water and bathrooms in Baby Bro's house.  I am not homeless. Yet!

New trailer should be arriving soon.  Stay tuned to read about what kind of misadventures I have with that.