n"July 2, 2005
It was the perfect day. Clear blue skies, warm summer weather, and a beautiful bride ready to make her way down the isle to get married.
The wedding was near perfect, and reception could not have gone any smoother. It was truly a day to remember. To cap off the day, and send us off on our way, the guest from the wedding surrounded us with blue glow sticks as we danced our last dance and made our way out the building.
.... now fast forward three years
The day wasn't nearly as perfect.....we both started it off having to work. We were able to get out of town early though as we headed up towards Pokagon State Park to join the rest of my mom's side of family for the annual family reunion. During our trek up 69 (that would be 5 out of 7 weekends for those counting) we made a quick stop for dinner in Fort Wayne. Deciding to treat ourselves to something other than fast food, we ate at Casa's, a local Italian restaurant chain in town. (The was also the place we had our rehearsal dinner 3 years and 1 day earlier) With dinner finished, we completed our journey to Pokagon.
This is where the day turned from boring, to happy, to miserable. The closer we got to the exit, the darker the sky became, and the more we began to wonder how soon this monster would open up. We were able to make it into the park without a drop, however the conditions were rapidly deteriorating, and everyone knew that something was about to hit. Quick to her feet, Sara dialed up the Taylor weathermen (see previous posts) and got a full report of the approaching storm. It appeared that this cell stretched across the entire state and was slowly shifting south towards us. The leading edge had already produced flooding, loss of power, and funnel clouds. Luckily, this was already 60 miles past us, so all we had to deal with was wind rain and hail from the tail end. In an eerie movie type setting, the edge finally passed over, and strangely 10 mins later the rain and wind followed. The storm continued for about 45 mins before the entire inn lost power. At the time we were down by the pool watching my cousins swim. The lights flickered and went out, and we didn't think to much of it, I glanced at my watch and noticed it was 9:24, so I knew the pool wasn't closing and was probably a small power outage. I guess I underestimated the definition of small.
The entire inn was without power from 9:24 pm, until 7:00 am the next morning when I woke to the sound of everything coming back on in our room. Not only were we without power, but also water.
The next two hours were spent hanging out with the family as we tried to play card via lanterns supplied by the staff, walking around the inn to observe the madness, and partaking in the free ice cream at 11:30 as the kitchen staff tried to salvage what they could from the freezers.
At one point in the evening, my cousin Dave was coming back to the inn after going back home to pick up his wife. We asked him to swing by wal-mart and pick up some bottled water as the inn was beginning to run out. After arriving, a few brave souls went outside to help unload his car. Thankfully the rain had stopped, but my Uncle Dale and myself were about knocked to our feet as we went to grab some flash lights out of my grandpa's car. All I can remember is walking down the stairs via moon light, only to encounter an extremely bright flash of lighting. The kind that lights up the ENTIRE sky and makes you think....."hey, when did it become day?" Not a second after thinking that exact thought, did a clap of thunder hit so hard that I about lost my balance walking down the steps and had to check my pants for any accidents. With a new found ringing in my ears, I turned around to find my Uncle Dale bracing himself against the rail as he was grabbing his chest. Its not everyday you walk outside in stone cold silence, only to be rudely interrupted with a clap of thunder. He explained that he wasn't sure if we were just struck by lightening, but I knew from my cartoons that since our hair wasn't smoking and standing on end, that we were ok. We quickly gathered up the flashlights from the car and headed back inside as we didn't feel like sticking around the find out if we really could get struck by lightening.
but the day wasn't a total disaster. Amid the chaos, the staff began to pass out glow sticks, so that everyone without flashlights would have some means of light. I guess this has happened before and they magically knew the outage could last for up to 10 hours. It was then that we realized that exactly 3 years ago at that moment, the two of us were surround with glow sticks as we were ready to start our lives together. 3 years later, we were playing with glow sticks all over again.
The next day consisted of the inn recovering from being without power for 9.5 hours, everyone receiving a free breakfast due to the loss of power, a little outdoor exercise, shopping, evening hay ride, grandpa's vesper service, and some good old fashion smore's by the fire.Come Friday morning we all said our good-byes and parted ways. On our way to the second leg of our weekend journey, we stopped at a local winery to do a little wine tasting and stock up on our supply. We then made the short jog over to the Taylor family lake house were we were welcomed with our next adventure.
Eric's Safety Tips for the week;
1. Always carry glow sticks around. They are inexpensive and provide ample light in an emergency. Plus you never know when you will need to help celebrate our wedding day. Well, actually you should at least know that since its happens once a year, same time, same people.
2.NEVER leave wine you just purchased in a warm vehicle. It "cooks" the wine, which is evident when the corks pushes out of the bottle as the gases expand and try to escape around the sides of the cork.
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