Brrrrrrr (not enough "r's" for this polar vortex)!

No, no icicles down here!

TUESDAY:

Still no power, internet or cable.  People in the park are getting testy!🙃  Like what could be more important than our park?  Maybe the other several million without power?  I am concerned about the elderly, and I realize cold weather and no power is something many people have never had to deal with.  Our park is like a family and everyone looks out for each other.  Nice we are connected on a Facebook page.

Eric's power (near Houston) came back on at midnight.  Glad for that. They had already cancelled school for the day.  We are toasty warm, nothing frozen after a long mid 20° night, and we have liquor.🍷  Might be low on chocolate though!🙀  Have heard they will have the power on between today and Thursday.  In other words, they don't know.  High today 51°, low tonight 39, and maybe a little sun this afternoon.  Pat even hooked up the water and sewer until Thurs. night when we will dip back into the 20's.  Next week?  Temps near 80.  I told him I promise not to complain about the heat.

A vinyl piece (not sure what color this section was) blew off Sun. when it was terribly windy.  No one has found it, but if the sun comes out I'll go investigate.

MONDAY:

A cold day, great for making brownies.  Ok, let's be honest, ANY day is a great day to make brownies.

Heard that this is the coldest it's been since 1989.  That year they lost and had to replace most of their citrus trees.

Looks as if we are not having a planned outage now.  Power has been off since 2 or 3 and could be off through Tues. or longer.  No internet so posting will be tomorrow---maybe.  Many places over Texas were closed today and have already closed for tomorrow.

It's almost 5 p.m. and we've finally hit the high of the day, 35°. The temperature isn't going to be quite as cold tonight, 24° instead of 21°.  It is still the longest cold night with temperatures dropping below freezing by 7 p.m.  The sun really didn't come out like they said so the RV didn't warm up a lot.  The power has been on and off all day.

9 a.m.  the sound of generators running!  The additional solar cells and our new batteries that, Pat, Eric and Chris installed are once again proving their worth.  Even though it's currently 22°, and the sun is still under clouds, we are generating solar energy and have not had to run our generator.

I know it's much worse up north, but they just aren't set up for this kind of weather down here, in many ways. When Pat had Krik out at 6, 6:30 and 7 (she's a little restless!) he said there was ice on the steps and sidewalks but the roads seemed OK.  That doesn't mean overpasses and bridges (there are a lot of them) are.  North of us had a lot more ice and some actual snow.  Also this weather continues...

A layer of ice greeted us Monday morning.

Icicles everywhere

We are having "rolling power outages," according to a note from the power company.  Not having enough supply to meet demand they rotate turning power off for 30 - 90 minute time periods throughout the area.  They use a lot of wind power and even the turbines were freezing.  Pat said Iowa is a major wind provider but I can't remember hearing about them freezing. We have batteries, and then a generator if needed.  At 8:30 a.m. we have lost electricity again.

Our son lives southeast of Houston and their town has been without power since 2:30 a.m.  The ladies are going over to a friend's.  Temperatures there are in the teens.  I'm guessing this is their 2nd snow in about 7 years?  They moved here from Wisconsin.  Their living room is at 55° and it's too cold to go out to play and not have a warm house to come into, but it looks like they bundled up and went out anyway.  

Houston area snow.  Watching them, it looked more like ice but they had fun.

Time to dig out the 7 year-old winter gear and see what fits. In the back, Emma and Lilah, in the front Alexa and Clara.

SUNDAY:

No sun on Sun. with a high in the 30's.  We turned the heat up to 67° last night and the basement temperature, where the tanks are, didn't go below 40°.  Our main basement storage compartment has heat vents and there are openings between that compartment and the tank compartment.We opened the cabinet under the kitchen sink and put a fan in there to blow heat to the back.   There are pipes running along that side, along with the water heater, that really aren't insulated.  It is at least on the south side and not on the north where the strong winds are hitting. We occasionally ran some hot water over night to keep the water heater, which isn't in a warm compartment  from freezing.  Unlike a mobile home, Pat has our water and sewer disconnected so we can't continuously run a drip in the faucet or we could overfill our grey tank.  It's now 8 a.m. and the low of the night  around 22°.

Doors and drawers are open to let heat back by the pipes.

The fan was blowing warm air to the back.

SATURDAY:

9:30 a.m. on Sat. at 37°, 15+ mph winds,  with strong gusts out of the north, raining and I VERY begrudgingly take Krikkit out after she pawed at the door (did nothing by the way). I walked backwards into the wind and then attempted to hurry Krikkit along back to the RV.  She has 2 speeds, by the way, slow and slower! I thought maybe I was hallucinating, but no, there was a couple riding bikes.  Younger than the average resident, but the only other sign of life outside.  They did have jackets on BUT they were in SHORTS!