Two weeks ago, I started writing this post….
“A very close friend winters down here and last year we spent some time down here with him. This year we came back again as it is a nice quiet town with beaches, parks, fishing, shopping, and great weather! We are on our way to see the carrier USS Lexington down in Corpus Christi. Today’s high temp here is 73 while Chicago will see a whopping 16 degrees”.

What’s funny about that post is 70 – 71 degrees is the NORMAL temperature for this time of year. One week ago, heaven turned into hell! For several days, the highs hovered around 34 – 35 wile lows went down to 17. The entire state was hit with snow, ice and temps below 0. There were major pile ups and closed roads. In Rockport, we had some warmer weather, but that 17 degree low burst pipes and caused water shut offs. Never expecting weather not seen in a century, 45 megawatts of power was offline for maintenance and that forced power outages and rolling blackouts. I put a couple days of water into the onboard tank the get thru the coldest night, but that was when we lost all water for four days. We did have power, but below 40 degrees the heat pump stops, so heat was furnace only. That caused 3 trips to get propane in one week. One time at the coldest, the line was three and a half hours long! Today, we are going to hit 60 and the water got turned back on this morning. After breakfast, I have a date with a long, hot shower.