Last night we took a trip to the cabin to check on it after the devastating ice storm of January 26th. We checked with the electric company to see if we had power before we left, but they couldn't tell us anything. Regardless, we needed to take some things up and especially clean out the refrigerator.

The trip up was interesting because we took a new ride...I'm not sure the year model, but it's old; I'm thinking civil war...oh wait they didn't have cars back then, oh well. Tom is considering purchasing the old LR SWAT suburban. He thinks it's cool. I think it looks like someone spray painted a white suburban black which is basically what they did. However it's a diesel and has some super big engine that Tom thinks will be awesome to haul the tractor up to the cabin...so we don't mess up my Yukon. Ok...so we set out. Keep in mind, the windows are SWAT, secret service blacked out, the front 2 windows don't roll down, there is no radio, but by golly, we have lights, sirens, and a loud speaker in case we need to tell someone to "come out with their hands up". The whole way I'm looking for my seat warmer. It does have this really neat light that was installed on the dashboard that is like a snake...great for reading books.

Back to the story, we're driving up and the land is totally devastated. It looks somewhat like the tornado damage from last year, but eerily more damaging. The trees are broken and down everywhere. We finally arrive to Annabelle Lane, and we notice that the power lines are awfully close to the ground. We truck on and see 3 power poles that are snapped in half. The lines are down but we're thinking we can make it to the cabin. As soon as we make it down the hill and around 2 curves, the lines are blocking the way so that we can't get through. At this point there is no where for a suburban and a trailer carrying a Polaris to turn around soooooooo, we have to back up for about a mile. Now that was fun. Eventually Tom asks me to get out to direct him as he backs up because you can't see out of SWAT/secret-service blacked out windows at dusk while your backing up. So I do. Then he yells out the window that he can't see me because my coat is black. So I take my coat off so he can see my hot pink shirt. Unbeknown to me I'm directing, and he can't see me in my pink shirt either. Clay said, "by the time we get to the top of the hill mom will be in her underwear". He's so funny.

Finally we get to the top, unload the Polaris and take our supplies to the cabin. It was dark by time and from what we could tell, we've lost at least 25 trees up close to the cabin. There was no damage to the cabin so that was a blessing. There is no telling how many we've lost over all of the acres, we'll check that out next week when we get up there in the daylight.

Once inside, we unload our supplies & started the refrigerator clean. We still had frozen ice, so that was good, nothing was stinky. I figure all of the stuff probably was still good, but we tossed it anyway. I don't think death by Miracle Whip would be that fun. After the clean up, we rode around the land & looked at what we could see then headed back up the hill to come home. We'll update the ice storm damage next week when we go up. In the mean time, we're praying our electricity gets fixed this week. We're hoping for the best for sure.