–Victor Hugo.
Having been suspended in the vortex of a pandemic we were finally able to break free! With a new top on Isadora we were ready to run. Admittedly she wasn’t completely adorned yet after the reroofing, but structurally we were recovered. And so decided to take a number of short trips this year to knock the dust off and reacquaint ourselves with the cadence of living life in the Vardo. We decided a trip to Ohio to visit Jungle Jim’s would be our first order, then down into Kentucky for a little site seeing and then resting for a few days in Madison, Indiana at Cliffty Falls where we had our very first overnight with the Vardo all those years ago.
Brilliant plan, except… the temperatures were against us. It was so cold that we decided to head a couple hours further south, chasing the sun. Well that turned into a couple more hours further south, and a couple more, then a couple more. We landed in the southern half of Alabama. We had one beautiful day before the cold found us with a winter snow and ice squall with wicked north winds that blew people’s tents into the river and left ice dripping from the trees.
We laugh a lot. Even the most ridiculous experiences don’t phase us. So we bundled up, hunkered in and waited it out. We hadn’t yet run a fire in the wood stove, which on the first time stinks with a acrid stench, so we couldn’t stoke up and had to rely on a small space heater and heated mattress pad. Still we were in more than 3 layers of clothing and under the blankets for hours on end. The winds wailed and whipped, shaking the Vardo and forcing through any undefended opening. We stuffed pillows in the windows, underwear against the door jam and had to prepare all our meals on an electric skillet inside. Minding that we are working in such an intimate space.
I was creating beef stroganoff from the finds of our travels. The onions, garlic and wine were smelling decadent when suddenly the breaker flipped. Blue, braving the squall, went to check on it. He returned, only to inform me that we weren’t going to have power. Apparently the electric skillet pulls an inordinate amount of amperage and had completely melted the entire extension cord in the retractable holder. Had the melt not notified us when it did, a fire could have resulted later in the night. And as fearful as that thought was, we didn’t miss a step. We laughed at our crazy adventure and then just pivoted, packed everything up on the fly, fully aware that without some kind of heat we couldn’t stay a moment longer, and headed north again. We found lodging in Tennessee and finished the trip home in one day. As we arrived, the weather broke and the sun warmed our faces. Tongue in cheek welcome home!
