Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Tornadoes, Tournaments and Today's Inspiration


This is the first time I've missed a daily posting on Today's Inspiration. Why, nothing short of a major power outage caused by a tornado would stop me from this pleasant self-imposed obligation. Coincidentally, that's exactly what happened.

Friends invited us to join them at a cottage in Haliburton last Wednesday. We packed up the kids and the dog, I loaded in my iMac and tablet, and off we went for a couple of days of working vacation in cottage country. We arrived at dinner time and a major storm arrived just an hour later. The power went out a 7:55 pm and was still out the next morning. The one kilometer walk to the paper box required running an obstacle course through downed trees draped in broken power lines. Our sideroad alone had five 40' tall trees snapped off like twigs.

That day the supermarket would only sell ice, bottled water and newspapers at the front entrance and rumour spread that power would be out for up to five days. We still had a great time but had to deal with inconveniences like boiling water on the barbeque to make a pot of coffee - and of course working on my computer and using the internet became impossible.
I was scheduled to meet a second group of friends at another cottage about an hour away for our annual summer fishing derby that coming weekend, so Wendy and the kids dropped me off as they headed home last Friday. The power was back on at the second cottage but the storm had wreaked havoc with the water levels in the river, and the fish had become all befuddled. We spent a pleasant time drinking beer and not catching fish.

I'm back home at last and I still have enough Andy Virgils to get us to Friday so I thought we'd just pick up where we left off so unceremoniously last week.

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:30 AM

    Hey Buddy....we were up in cottage country too...Our last night was the tornado....
    fun and scary at the same time..drinking a few from the boathouse watching the action.
    (I swear I saw Dorthy and a coupla flying monkeys)
    We drove back the next day from Renfrew county and passed thru Bancroft,Haliburton,etc,etc.....
    Major damage all the way to Barrie.

    ....I love cottage life.

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  2. I'm with Chip, on that one: at least say that your dog ate it, or something creative!!! Tornadoes, 40' trees, yeah right: you even got the small minded putz from Orangeville believing that story! He was not in cottage country: he was wasted in in backyard...! All that to say thanks for at least coming up with an excuse! That will go in your records, unless a bribe is quickly forwarded to the "Save the René" fundation.

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  3. See, in the states that's what we call "camping." ;)

    Glad you're back in the game man.
    I'm digging Virgil.

    =s=

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  4. Thanks guys, you're sympathetic words of support are really touching. ;-)

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  5. Welcome back, Leif. I missed my daily fix.

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  6. Anonymous9:41 AM

    So glad you're back (and safe). I was beginning to have withdrawal symptoms.

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