Isn’t it fun the way mother nature and good old New England weather can dash all of your plans? Well, that happened to us, but with a just fine outcome. My plan was to head to my dad’s in NH (where the Scamp has spent the winter) on Friday and spend the nice April weekend cleaning it out, flushing the antifreeze out of the lines and getting her all set for lots of upcoming camping. Nice April weekend, you say? Not the case. A big storm was heading straight to dad’s – 19” of snow forecast for Wednesday-Friday. OK, we’ll head up Wed. morning and pull the camper out to a spot that will be easy to clear and to make an easy get-away on Sunday.

We warmed up the Scamp with our little electric heater and went to bed with just a dusting of snow on the ground Wednesday night. We woke up to a very cold camper and the heater wouldn’t turn on – no power. At least 8” of heavy, wet snow had fallen overnight and trees and powerlines were down all over. I grew up with power outages from storms – we’ll be fine in a few hours. A few hours later, the house is now getting cold, and we’re all a lot older and less tolerant of these things. We were rescued by a friend who brought us a generator, so we had heat in the house. No lights or water (other than bottled water we brought for camping), but heat and a gas stove to cook on. Three wool blankets, a quilt, and down comforter kept us warm in the camper overnight.

We kept ourselves occupied with crossword puzzles, reading, knitting, napping, and checking social media for any power updates. Over 200,000 NH households were without power during the storm. Crews were working hard clearing trees and restoring lines, but trees continued to fall throughout the day making for a very difficult job. Our power was restored after 56 hours, and others in town had to wait another 24 hours or more for theirs to come on. It wasn’t the adventure we had planned on, but it was an adventure, and we are glad that we could be there with dad – one less storm he had to run the snowblower.

And then we were finally on our way to Eclipseville! We had a camping spot in North Stratford, NH, at the Blueberry Hill Restaurant, Inn and Campground (The restaurant and inn are no longer open, but the campground was perfect). The drive north was uneventful, and we stopped for a bite to eat at Bea’s Café in Conway. We each ordered a BLT – they were delicious, and were enough for lunch and dinner that night! I hadn’t been to the Conway area in decades, and it was fun to see some familiar sights. Horsefeathers Restaurant is still there – a favorite of mine 40+ years ago. We passed Memorial Hospital where I was born and had my appendix out (which I remember vividly 😊), and Story Land, another place from childhood memories. Driving through Pinkham Notch has not changed much, and we enjoyed the views of snow-covered Mt. Washington.