So… myself, the Fun With Vinyl-wife and the Fun With Vinyl-son headed out on Dec. 22nd for Gatlinburg, Tennessee in the Great Smokey Mountains for our Christmas vacation.  Things started out great, we spent the 23rd shopping at the outlet malls around Pigeon Forge and we spent Christmas Eve walking and shopping around downtown Gatlinburg and dined at Bubba Gump’s.  We woke up Christmas morning to the first white Christmas any of us had ever experienced.  Christmas day was great and we woke up the next day to snow still coming down and just planned to stay in for the day, no big deal. 

At noon on the 26th, the vacation ended.  Three huge trees fell in front of our cabin across power lines and snapped the power pole in the front yard off at the ground.  It also ripped the meter and panel box off the side of the cabin, leaving us with no electricity and only a propane fueled fireplace insert for heat.  That power pole that snapped?  Barely missed my truck and landed in front of it, blocking me from being able to drive around it.  We were stuck with no way to leave and no electricity in the cabin.  The realty company we were renting from came and got us and moved us to another cabin 2 miles away.  We took enough stuff for an overnight stay.  If only… 

We were supposed to leave for home on the 27th.  Didn’t happen.  We hiked up to the cabin where my truck was on the 27th, the pole was still blocking the way.  Gathered a few more items and hiked back to the other cabin and spent the night.  On the 28th, we walked back to the cabin, pole was still blocking truck.  Called power company and got them to send someone out to move the pole and the power lines out of the driveway and from the road in front of the cabin.  They moved their lines but, left two lines across the road that belonged to AT&T and Charter Cable.  We spent the afternoon shoveling snow/ice off the driveway.  AT&T and Charter said they couldn’t get anyone out until the next day.  Hiked back to the other cabin for the night.

On the 29th, we hiked up to the cabin again.  Was able to drive my truck to the end of the driveway.  However there was still about 50-60 yards of road that couldn’t be plowed because of the lines across the road.  So, we spent that afternoon shoveling snow/ice from that road down to the main road that had been plowed.  A crew from Charter Cable showed up and removed their line from across the road. The road we shoveled was still too icy to drive on.  Hiked back to the other cabin for the night.

On the morning of the 30th, we were awakened by one of the guys from the realty company.  He was offering us a ride back to the cabin (didn’t have to walk! yay!), he felt certain we could drive out of there, finally.  We all got dressed and jumped into his truck.  When we got there, he started putting out some “ice melt” while we got our remaining belongings from the cabin and loaded them into the truck.  Once the truck was loaded, we were able to drive out.  We drove to the other cabin, got the rest of our belongings and began a 7+ hour drive home.  We reached home around 8:00pm.  A 5 night stay, wound up being an 8 night stay.  We are glad to be home. 

Music posts should get back to normal next week.  Here’s wishing everyone a safe and Happy New Year.  Thanks for all the positive comments as this blog got off the ground this year, looking forward to a full year of Fun With Vinyl in 2011.

Here are some photos of the trees and power lines.

In the meantime, I’m thinking of changing my name to Clark Griswold … =D