Cold Snap

It’s cold.

The wind howled all night long, buffeting the RV and making it feel sometimes like we were on a ship in turbulent waters.  We have a small electric heater that we use when we have electric hookups to reduce our propane usage (a great suggestion from Dave at Dave’s RVs) and it ran all night long on its maximum setting.  Still, the temperature in this tin can was down to 51 degrees this morning when I got up.  Outside registered 27 with a 30 mph wind.  Feels like 12.  So now we’re using electricity AND propane to keep warm.

And all the folks back home are saying Yeah, cry me a river!

And tonight, it’s supposed to be almost ten degrees colder.

It never made it above 28 degrees today.  The little bit of rain that fell made all the outside steps icy and the wind continues to  blow unabated.  Several of the RVs here have frozen water lines, but so far, we are still OK.

In spite of all this, we got quite a bit done.  Some guys trimmed out the inside for the A/C units we installed last week.  They just moved all the bunk beds aside and brought the saws inside to make the trim pieces.  There will be some additional clean up from the sawdust, but it allowed them to stay warm.  We'll trim the outside when things warm up. Daniel and I pulled new thermostat wiring into the rooms needing A/C units and finished the breaker panels and power plugs for the A/C units.  When the other guys finished their trimming, they installed the A/C units, and, because power was already there, were able to turn them on using their heat setting and warm the rooms back up.

Lunch was two-by-four soup.  Four ingredients: two pounds of hamburger, two cans of Rotelle tomatoes, two cans of minestrone soup, and two cans of ranch beans.  On a cold day, it was delicious.

The women continued coating the benches.  They are under pressure to complete this because the building they are using also has the indoor pickleball courts and several of us want to play pickleball.  With benches all over the courts, that is not possible right now.

This town completely shuts down during a cold snap.  Except for the hardware stores.  They are doing a brisk business selling heaters.  Since our little electric heater is no match for the cold, we went to the local Tractor Supply Store to get a second electric heater.  Us and half the town.  Online, they said they had one in stock.  When I got there I found out that the one in stock was damaged and couldn’t be sold.  They were sold out of all the smaller heaters.  Same story at the Ace Hardware store.  I was told that the first thing that sold out was heat lamps and anything that can keep pipes warm.  Then the run started on space heaters.  I managed to find one there, but it was the last one and it turned out to be kind of a dud.  It only works on half power.  Well, half power is better than no power.  The next couple of nights are going to require all the power we can muster.