Adaptability, Resilience, and Creativity

Leaning into adaptability, resilience, and creativity this morning.

The high winds in Colorado (up to 109 mph near Boulder yesterday) caused us to lose power in the middle of the night. We’re lucky–others have been out since yesterday morning when parts of the power grid were shut down to prevent fires if lines went down.

Luckily we have our little travel trailer. It’s been winterized, but we have power on the lithium batteries and propane in the tanks, plus a solar panel to recharge the batteries today. Add on our Starlink mini and we have a warm, lit and connected space where we can at least charge our phones on USB and 12V. (Laptops are another matter–no AC charging on our batteries without an inverter. We’ll use Chris’s truck for that. Because trucks have AC power now…?)

We’re also making coffee and breakfast on the gas stove since we have induction in the house, and can move food into the camper fridge if needed.

This won’t be a long-term solution, as we’re on a well and septic, and we have to use buckets of water to flush the toilet.

There’s also a lesson in this: we’d been talking for months about getting a generator but kept procrastinating. We finally made the call and the electric switch was supposed to be installed last Friday but the part was out. So it’s getting installed next week. If we’d just made the decision we knew we needed to make we wouldn’t be sitting in the camper today.

Like I said, we’re lucky we have our travel trailer to be warm in. Tens of thousands are without power and don’t have that luxury.

When will the power be back on? Magic 8 Ball says “Reply hazy, try again.”

(Xcel has already alerted to possible power grid shut downs tomorrow due to more high winds. Better to lose some food in the fridge than your whole house in a fire. Please send snow.)

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