The evening before the rainy day --
Upon turning off the main highway onto the county road en route to our cabin, we saw something we had not expected at all: a
restaurant at that intersection, with the same name that it used to have, and doing business in the same structure that it
occupied 50+ years earlier. The
building and the lawn and grounds had been spruced up since then, and it was looking better and newer now than it looked
when it was a whole lot newer than it is now. (Wish I'd taken a picture.) We thought it must be a good omen of things
to come! After unpacking the car and enjoying our home away from home for a while...
.... Wait. I think it's time for another picture of our view of the lake here....
It's also another view of our white metal lawn chairs!
As I was saying ..... After enjoying our home away from home for a while, we headed back to the
looks-better-older-than-when-it-was-newer restaurant for dinner. The place was busy, but we didn't have to wait
to be seated. We each opted for the chicken special, and it was very good. Kitchen prep time for
us: zero. Dishwashing time for us: zero. Our relaxing getaway was off to an excellent start!
The rainy day - (major understatement!) --
We knew before we began the trip that our first full day at the lake was not likely to be a perfect weather day, so we planned
accordingly. We didn't consider playing Canasta. We don't remember how to play it and I'm not even positive I really
enjoyed it a lot when I knew how, so a rainy day shopping trip into town seemed to be in order for us. It obviously was
in order for a lot of other vacationers that day, too. Hayward has changed a lot
in the past 50 years. It's bigger than it used to be -- year-round population in 2000 was 2,129. With so many
lakes within a short drive of Hayward, the unofficial population in the summertime is much larger, and it has always
been especially busy in town on rainy summer days.
There are large new hotels in town now, and there's a McDonald's now. The buildings on the main street were old back then, and
they're older now. Some
looked vaguely familiar to me, but many (most... probably all) have undergone cosmetic changes over the years, and the names of
the stores were almost all different from the store names I remembered, too. There used to be one grocery store
in downtown Hayward
where we'd shop usually once a week; now there are more options, and they aren't right in the heart of downtown,
and they aren't small stores. We didn't go into any of Hayward's grocery stores. Meal preparation
was never even tentatively penciled into the schedule during the planning phase of our getaway.
(This photo was taken the day after the storm)
It wasn't raining yet in town. We went into one store where I bought an "Uff da!" magnet for my semi-quiet refrigerator at home. If you don't know what "Uff da!" means, you may be living someplace where fish are jumping and the cotton is high. If you want to know what "Uff da!" means, Google can assist you.
(the other little magnets were a gift to me from my sister, at some previous time)
We left that first store and stepped out to the sidewalk and then the rain came! Not a drizzle, not a gradual or gentle rain, not a steady rain, but a sudden horrific cloudburst that turned the streets into rivers that flooded and spilled over the curbs and onto the sidewalks, and had everyone scurrying for shelter. The wind was worse than the rain. These beautiful hanging baskets of flowers in front of the bank (also photographed the day after the storm), and similar baskets in front of some of the shops, were "hanging" horizontally during the storm.
How the flowers survived the storm to look this gorgeous by the next day I cannot imagine. Some large trees didn't fare nearly so well.
The rain came down, and the wind came up, and the power went out. Then it came back on. Out again! On!
Out again!.......oops!......Really out that time! All the shops and restaurants locked their doors, people got
into their cars, and downtown was soon deserted as everyone headed for (?) someplace else.
We decided to take a different route home to the cabin. It was the middle of the day, but the sky was dark, and
it was still raining. There were some small tree branches on the
road and traffic lights were out. There were no lights to be seen anywhere, in fact, except for car headlights and flashes
of lightning in the sky.
It was obvious that a big part of Sawyer
County was powerless. We didn't know what the situation was at our cabin, but we knew it wasn't fun driving
in the rain and wondering what disasters we might find when we got back there, and wondering if there would be any place open
where we could eat! And then, a sparkling, glittering
oasis of welcoming light appeared on the horizon.
Las Vegas? Close. It was the tribal casino, with a great big parking lot that was filling up fast, and an enormous and very loud generator outside the building that was providing power to this evidently lone port in the storm. Joining many other storm survivors, we went inside, where it was bright and light and air conditioned, and not raining or windy. The slot machines were clanging and ringing, and a sign on the entrance door to the buffet said the dinner buffet would open at 5pm! Some people were there specifically because they enjoy losing money, and some were there taking shelter from the weather. Everybody seemed pretty happy to be where we all were, no matter the reasons we all wound up there. Occasionally someone would go to the casino's entrance to check on the weather and come back to report, "You don't want to go back out there yet!" Some people we talked to there were just traveling through -- on motorcycles! -- from Michigan, heading back home to North Dakota, and had planned to continue for another few hours before stopping for the night. They got caught in the storm when it hit, and when they saw the casino had power but no place else did, they decided in about half a second to stop and get rooms to stay overnight in the casino's hotel. Lots of people were waiting to hear their names called when their hotel rooms became available. Unfortunately, they had to wait a long time. The enormous generator was not providing power to the hotel, which was dark, and closed, and obviously not high on the casino's power priority list. We heard the next day that power was finally restored to the hotel about midnight. At least we knew we could eat when the buffet opened. When we went to the buffet at 5pm, we saw a nasty hand-written sign on the door:
NOOOOoooo!!! (Perhaps the casino's board should consider adding another enormous generator or two?)
The thought of going back to our cabin and having to use a knife to slice sufficent
quantities of summer sausage to pile on enough crackers to constitute two actual meals, and perhaps having to do so by the
dim glow of a single flashlight without new batteries,
was devastating. We headed out of the casino to search for any other bright port in
the dark storm. Possibly good news arrived before we even got to the parking lot, when someone
said he'd heard that parts of Hayward had power again, so into the car and back toward town we
went. The rain had subsided, and as we approached Hayward we could see that some lights were on, including a pair of
glowing golden arches. Kitchen prep time for us: zero. Dishes to wash: none. Free refills for
our Cokes on the way out the door. Another
successful meal in our tummies, and an unexpectedly fun and exciting day as a bonus!
It's like I always say:
"A vacation without at least one unplanned adventure is like a
refrigerator without an "Uff da!" magnet."
No downed trees were encountered while navigating back to our cabin. It had power when we got there, no leaks
in the roof were apparent, no trees appeared to be uprooted, and the big refrigerator was singing its
unique repertoire of somewhat soothing sounds. Whew!
Rain cooled the air and sleeping that night was heavenly. In the morning the sun was shining on our dock, and
the flowers on our deck looked happy and hydrated.
We decided to take another trip to Hayward to check out the shops that the power outage had caused us to miss the day before, which was almost all of them. There are some really nice stores downtown, including the biggest candy store I've ever seen! It was the most popular place in town, by far, and it was popular with shoppers of all ages. There was homemade candy being made there -- people were watching that from inside the store and also from out on the sidewalk through the big windows. The store also had a large room with dozens of baskets forming a huge circle. The baskets were filled with, I think, every kind of "penny candy" and "movie theater candy" you've ever had in your life, including all those you've long since forgotten you ever had.... (but you'd remember if you saw them again, just like I did!) Spending time wandering around and looking at everything in that candy store fit right in with our "remember when?" vacation theme.