The Flood

Before I begin the retelling of this story I want to get you in my mindset – why this was so frightening. Trevor. Cannot. Swim.

Something Mild

The vacation was a surprise gift from my mother and father in law, something neither one of us saw coming. After seeing how difficult this year has been for us they wanted to give us the vacation we crave, and what we craved more than anything was the cabin in the woods. This was where my family always escaped to in the summer, the place where Trevor and I went on our honeymoon. This was our happy place.

Luckily, before the sky opened up I remembered to take some photos.

As you can see the cabin we stayed in was built up on the hill, away from the lake. We never thought in our right minds that this was going to be a saving grace.

The first day it rained, but only slightly. It was more like a humid blanked had been draped over us, we couldn’t have cared less. It was our place, and it was our time to be away from phones, computers, work, money and every other care in the world. We listened to music, we danced (I know, so darn sweet it makes my teeth hurt), we cooked, we read, we walked….we did all the things we always did when we came here. This was Friday. By Saturday, things started to change.

Just Starting.

Getting Heavier.

The Downpour.

The Water got Dark.

And Things Got Bad.

By the time we lost power on Saturday we had 5 inches of rain and the lake, a runoff from the river, had risen to engulf what was left of the land between cabins. Our cabin was the highest of them all, and thus suffered the least amount of damage (and no damage to the car). We though this was going to be a great story! We played Scrabble, took a nap and went about preparing to read for 24 hours straight – heaven in our books.

But it just kept raining.

We kept reading, eating fresh fruit and drinking copious amounts of coffee, and we listened to it rain. We came to the decision very early in the morning that it was time to get out.  Well, that just wasn’t going to happen.

At this point, the Evil Dead was playing over and over in my mind. Trapped in a cabin, no phone and no way to contact our family. We were trapped here – and my husband cannot swim. I will be the first to admit that after I took the photo my Panic Monster reared its ugly head and I had a full-fledged meltdown on the road. Trevor was calming, comforting, and more than anything he was reasonable. We would go back to the cabin and read, waiting for the storm to stop. Ash Caves floods all the time, and the flash floods dissipate in hours due to the great civic engineers that plan for this.

So back to the cabin. The rain never relented its beating on the roof and slowly the pages of our books begin to wilt with moisture. Between the two of us though (I figured I should add this) we finished:

Trevor’s.

Mine.

Mine.

Trevor’s.

Mine.

By noon, the poor couple across the lake tried to make a run for it. Their car seemed to disappear into the mud and the water rose very, very quickly. The clawed (yes, they clawed) their way out of the car and back to the cabin. This is when the network of people trapped in the valley went to their canoes and began helping one another. I wish I had taken pictures of this, but truth be told I was so scared of having Trevor in that water that I forgot to breath. With my foot he was adamant I stay inside, so me and my panic attack medication became old friends again.

We traded food, books, movies (some had portable DVD players and laptops that still had batteries) and board games. It wasn’t long after this that the man who owns the property showed up in his boat, ready to get us to the pay phone to call whoever we needed. Trevor took this picture when he made it up and called our parents and my brother respectively.

View from the Phone.

As you can see the rain had finally stopped, but the damage was done – we weren’t going anywhere. The gentleman told all of us not to fret – I am going to quote verbatim here:

“Of course I’m not going to charge you! Trying to leave here is as useless as tits on a nun!”.

So we ate marshmallows, read, played massive amounts of Scrabble and waited for either the cabin to go into the water or the water to recede. Finally, the next day the water seemed to be going down at a comical rate, like a giant stuck a straw in the lake and was taking monster gulps. The irrigation systems were back on track, we still had no power but who could care about that! I should thank my Dad for instilling in me the need to 1) Over-pack both clothes and food and 2) have a small, odd fetish for flashlights/lanterns/candles and everything else you could need to see in the dark.

We called home again, this time able to walk more than we paddled and for the first time in days I took a big deep breath. This was still our happy place – some stupid flash flood wasn’t going to take that away from us. When we were finally able to maneuver the car out we thought we were footloose and fancy free.

Ha!

The funniest (or saddest, I am choosing funniest) is that when we hit a hole backing out the trunk popped open and the bag with my knitting and our books when right into the water. I got out of the car and just hollered and laughed, go figure huh? We waded in thigh high water to retrieve what we could (we lost two books and two and a half knitting projects) but who cared? We laughed the whole way home.

Looking back it is already taking on the quality of a good story, a damned good story in my opinion. If all works out, this is what my NANOWriMo novel is going to be this year, there are too many “what if’s?” to ignore the possibility of a great story. As for Trevor and I, we are glad o be home, clean, feed and curled up with Max who refuses to leave our side. All in all, I have to say it was a truly epic anniversary!

 

Rachel Here ;) . . . . . . .I’m Baaack!!!

Hello friends and neighbors, it feels like it has been ages!

Well, as my loving brother and niece have probably told you, are anniversary getaway did not turn out as planned. This is putting it mildly I might add. It was a one surprise after another starting with the fact that my mother and father-in-law rented us a cabin for us to get away. Amazing right? I never would have signed up for the read-a-thon if I didn’t think I was going to be able to finish it, but the cabin in the woods where we spent our honeymoon was calling.

I don’t want to get into too much because a) I am dog tired – it’s a little after 3am here in the Buckeye State and we got home about two hours ago – and b) where does one start to retell this story? If any of you have seen the new Evil Dead, the scene in the rain where the road is washed out – that movie’s got nothing on what we have seen.

Rain Filter Added. Camera Didn’t Do It Justice.

Do I start with the water in the lake rising, eventually coming up under the cabin, which is built on pillars? Do I start with the other cabin dwellers canoeing back and forth between cabins because he lost power and had to share food? Do I start with the kindness of the innkeeper whole paddled us to a pay phone a mile away to call our loved ones?

I am getting too far into this. Need to prioritize a bit. First and foremost

• Do copious amount of laundry.
• Buy real food that doesn’t include chips or marshmallows.
• Convince Max that we weren’t planning on abandoning him.
• Reply to emails.
• Go through mail – Mom and Dad’s 30th is less than a week away (oh s%!t).
• Bake my brother a key lime pie as a thank you.
• Go back and attempt to convince Max we still love him.
• Catch up on blogs.
• See if I can salvage my knitting (that is a story all on it’s own).

After this, I can finally attempt to get things back to normal. Cannot wait to catch back up with y’all and the real world!

The Cabin in the Woods

Oh sweet oasis, how I have needed you! We have been renting cabins in Hocking Hills for years, the quaint cabins are set deep into wooded groves surrounding a lake where you can frolic in the clear water or waste an afternoon in one of the boats just drifting away the hours. I love it here, it is the only place I’ve ever been to that can completely purge my scatterbrained mind so completely. It is my Heaven on Earth.

Pieces of my most favoritist place on Earth!

I packed my bag with almost no care; changes of clothes and my ever ready dopp-kit were thrown haphazardly into a duffle bag with almost no thought, except maybe for comfort. It was the other bag, the goodie bag of awesomeness that I took care with; my camera, my iPod and it’s speakers, two books and a couple of WIPs for good measure. These were the items I cared about, the ones that wouldn’t make a trip into nature feel complete without their presence, and the best part of this nature is NO CELL PHONE SERVICE. That fact alone removed the knots in my shoulders and the heartburn that starts in my knees.

When we arrived, did I mention my husband was along for the trip? Well, he was, so there. Where Trevor and I are concerned there is no such thing as awkward silences, and being in the cabin we tend to do our own things together. If that makes sense. We’re both so absorbed in soaking up the carefree vibes that even being apart brings us together. This probably makes no sense, every marriage is a secret between two people as it should be, but I always feel closer to him in the cabin. Getting away from all the distractions that make you want to pout like a big, pissed off baby are all gone and you are just with each other again. Peace can do that I suppose.

The view from the cabin’s deck.

Anywho- Arriving made the stress melt away almost immediately, as if it never existed. We curled up on the outdoor couch and began devouring the books we had brought. Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects and John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars were my picks for the weekend and although they fall on very different ends of the literary spectrum, they were both incredible. If I had half the talent of the book reviewers I have read recently I would review them for you, but since I don’t I highly suggest you look into them for yourselves! There was a natural, natural to me it seems, migration from the couch to the boat with our books, the water lapping against the sides lulls one into a story, and for me this is the most conducive environment for creativity. So, on to the knitting.

WIP- Baby Blanket

Of course I only took one picture of things I am working on, I am prepared like that! The baby blanket to the left is for a friend of mine. I always do a swatch to see not only gauge and texture, but also to frame. I think it is nice to have a frame swatch of the baby blanket you bring your baby home with to keep as a memento, plus I never feel like I am wasting yarn! This swatch is going to suck to frame because the texture is so raised, the the blanket (God willing) is going to be beautiful.

Second in progress baby blanket.

This second guy here is also a baby blanket but will be far easier to frame. I love doing baby blankets for people because it is fun to always try out a new stitch pattern. I sit down, or email people all the different stitches and patterns that are available to them and let them choose. We go through size, weight, pattern, color and of course material. Most choose acrylic for obvious reasons but I have made several christening blankets from silk that were just a joy to have on my needles. Also, just as a forewarning, this will probably be my stitch pattern for this week. It was taken from my great-grandmother’s book and is absolutely hysterical the way she wrote it.

If you’re still with me, thanks for hanging in there because this post is turning into something more like a tome. The vacation was great, the knitting is fantastic, but life can still suck the root when you get back home. The biggest part of living in a society where everyone is sharing everything is that, well, baby pictures are everywhere. Baby pictures, pregnancy pictures and manically grinning families is something you are bombarded with on a daily basis. The biggest hiccup in my life is that I have always suffered from severe emetophobia; a fear of vomiting. To be honest just typing that word has the ability to make my heart start to race and my palms sweat. When you desperately want to be a mother but know that where you are now, even with therapy and medication (yup, they medicate phobias) would never work, it is fucking devastating. Pardon the foul language but I know no other way to get my point to bluntly across.

Knitting baby blankets is something I do because I LIKE doing it. The idea of making something that will bring a new life into their new home is pretty amazing, it just knowing you may never get to bring your OWN baby home in your creation that is devastating. I won’t go any further, for another post perhaps, just popped into my head. Even if nobody reads this at least the thought is out of my head, forever in black and white, and I can go back to doing what I do, going back into the real world, needles clicking all the time.

Besides, who looks happy to see us!

Look at the excitement!