Darkness, Cold Coffee, No Wi-Fi, and the Great Flashlight Treasure Hunt

This is a little different.
I'm writing on Monday morning, although it's Sunday’s post and will be dated Sunday.

We had a storm come through.
The thunder was so loud it rattled the windows, and you could feel it under your feet.
That was just super weird.

The power went off, came back on, but kept surging.
Like the lights would get really bright, then really dim, and it did that for several minutes before finally staying on.

So, about an hour later, Cowboy was at church, Badger was in her room, and I was trying to catch up on social media when the house went dark and silent.

Yep, power was off again, and this time it didn't come back on until nearly midnight.

After Cowboy got home from evening service, we went up to Walmart hoping that by the time we got back we'd have power.

We were on the way home and stopped at Weigel's for a cup of coffee when a neighbor sent me a text asking if our power was back on. Her power and all the way to the end of the street were still off. I told her I was in town, but they were off when we left. She said your porch light is on. I told her it was powered by solar. She said, are your twinkling lights also solar? I said if it's on the cow windmill, yes. And I got a thumbs up. In hindsight, she may have thought I was being a smart aleck, but it's a cow windmill with solar lights.

So we walked into a pitch‑black house. That wasn't fun.

We scrambled to find light.
Luckily we still had two of our solar lights we took camping.
They're really bright.
And because my phone battery was dead, Cowboy came up with something large and non‑electric Badger and I have never seen before that charged it.
Badger says it may be for jumping a car battery.
I don't know.
All I know is that my phone went from three percent to a hundred percent scarily fast.

Badger and I went to bed.
Well, Badger made a pallet on my bedroom floor.
The house was so freaking hot.
We don't dare leave windows open anymore, and I think she was getting a migraine.
Cowboy stayed in the living room with his Facebook videos.
I don't know when he went to bed.
I passed out pretty quickly, although that ten o’clock cup of coffee had me waking up off and on through the night.
My K‑Cup coffee doesn't do that, but then again this was some gas station specialty coffee brewed strong.

So what was Sunday like?

Cowboy went to morning and evening services.

After morning service, we went to the White Pine Book Store, and Badger and I got lost for about an hour or two.
I wish I was exaggerating.

By the time we finally found our way back out, I guess Cowboy had gotten hungry sitting in the car waiting on us.

A man at church was talking about the storm that hit Morristown yesterday, how bad it was, and how he and his wife were stuck at Texas Roadhouse for a long time.
They couldn't pay their check without power.

The next thing Badger and I knew, we were sitting in Texas Roadhouse looking at a menu.
It's not Badger's or my favorite restaurant since we're not big on eating meat.
Cowboy loves it, though, he's a meat eater.
We were cussing Bubba out for putting the idea in Cowboy's head, but it turned out to be good luck.

Cowboy had his mouth set for fried okra, and we had to break the news that you only get that at Cracker Barrel.
But he got his fried steak he likes.
Badger even got steak, although she thought she was getting ground beef.
It was called Roadkill and looked interesting.
I got salmon.
I can generally always find that on a menu.

By the time we'd eaten and got to the parking lot, the storm was hitting.
We tried to outrun it, but we ran into it from Morristown all the way home.

And I think that circles back to big, scary storm, no power, no computer.