Winter Storm

We arrived up here on Thursday night. Early Friday morning a pretty strong storm came through the area, with high winds and lots of rain. We originally lost electricity at about 5am on Friday morning and it came back on around 8am. Then it went out again at about 10am and is still off at the time of writing this post at almost midnight on Saturday night. The only reason I have an internet connection right now is because Ted has hooked up a generator to the house and we have some power, but he is going to shut it down at midnight to save gasoline and start it up again in the morning.

Mum, Jen and I went for a drive Friday afternoon to get out of the house (since there was no electricity). We drove down into downtown Sacramento through some of the worst freeway driving conditions I have ever had to deal with. The rain was very heavy and visibility was minimal. Coming along Business I-80 I actually saw the car immediately behind us, but one lane over, hit a puddle, aquaplane into the center divider and crunch up his front quarter panel and headlight. The downtown are was pretty messed up, whole trees down blocking roads, localized flooding to the point we had to go around some streets to avoid driving through water that was obviously really deep.

We had lunch at Brew It Up, a great beer bar, with facilities to brew your own beer on site.

Friday night, Jen and I left the grandparents at the house to eat by candlelight (no power still) and met Sam and Jen Sturdy at the Auburn Brewing Company. Jen Sturdy brought her friend Melissa and another friend she met while travelling overseas, Sonny. As it turns out Sonny is from Norwood, a suburb of Adelaide, my home town, so once again, it is a very small world.

Today (Saturday) we woke to still no power. We were supposed to have 30 or 40 people coming over today for a party to meet Callum and Mum. However, with no power, Ted and Les decided to cancel the party.

Instead Mum, Jen, Callum and I went for another drive up towards Placerville to check out the countryside. Eventually we stopped at the Placerville Brewing Company. The beer and food were good, but don't expect a masterpiece of architecture if you visit. It is basically a beige box on the side of the highway.

On the way back we stopped at Jen's sister Natalie's house, she had not had a chance to meet Callum yet.

Oh, did I forget to mention that today is my birthday? Not exactly feeling very birthday'ish with all the stuff going wrong today. But Nat was nice enough to bake me a birthday cake.

By the time we got back to Ted and Les' they had the generator hooked up and they had some power running, so the day ended on a bright note (pun totally intended!).