Be Prepared -- More Cell Phone Phun

We always try to be prepared when we go out or travel. Once when my husband was on a conference in Jackson Hole, WY (now called Jackson BTW), I decided to take the day off and travel through the Tetons taking photos. I had everything I needed -- and my husband made sure I did as well. I had the keys to the van, my driver's license, AAA card, credit cards, money, cell phone, water, and a packed lunch. A kiss good-bye, and he was off to his conference, while I was off on my photo adventure.

Just outside of Jackson is a pull-over with a sign. So I pulled over, and got out to read it. I parked and stepped into the cool autumn mountain air. When I turned around, the view of the Tetons was breathtaking. I went back to the van to get my camera. As I was pulling it out, the wind whipped the door against my elbow, and slammed the door shut. I took some awesome photos, then went to get into the van to continue my adventure.

The doors were locked. Apparently, that tricky wind knocking the door against my elbow, pressed down the lock button. I stood, alone, within sight of town, but no one around even on the road, as I looked through the van windows onto the seat at all the things I need for just such an emergency.

(The end of the story is that a kind, but rare to that pull-over, visitor let me use his cell phone to call. Then, about an hour later, a AAA truck pulled up in the pull-over. It took about ten seconds for the man set my van free, and for me to be off to see what other sort of trouble... I mean, adventure... I could get myself into.)

Snake Tale, Part I

I used to be terrified of snakes. Then I learned to hold and pet them and call them "Fluffy."

Perhaps the funniest snake story I know of came from a pilot friend who lived in South Dakota. He says this really happened to him.

While overnight in Georgia, a bunch of his pilot buds and he decided to do some local night fishing in a swamp. they rented boats, took lanterns to draw the fish to them, as well as shotguns to protect themselves from alligators. One pilot didn't know how to swim, so decided to stick close to the shore, unlike his buddies who figured the fishing would be better further out.

Picture several rowboats, most with two men in each, scattered throughout the bay, the men quietly fishing in the dark. Think peaceful, calm, serene. Hear: BAM! as a single gunshot blast goes off. Everyone was silent, wondering, worrying. Then my friend heard a soft: "Help."

No alligator. No Deliverance. Seems that the guy in the boat close to shore was under a tree. From the said overhanging tree dropped a snake into the bottom of his rowboat. Being terrified of snakes, he shot it. Picture big hole in boat bottom.

Under Winter Storm Watch

The battering of the east coast today reminds me of when we lived in a small town in NW Iowa. Before any storm, people crowded to the stores. People followed others around the parking lot just to snag a free shopping cart. Milk and egg and bread products were the first to go, for with only a couple inches of snowfall on the wind-swept plains, drifts could be building-high with roads closed for days, meaning no trucks bringing in things like milk and eggs and bread products.

So when we moved from IA to western NY, the first time I heard a weather report of a squall coming in, I packed up our kids and rushed off to the closest convenient store, hoping to get there before the crowds, and because it was a small store, maybe tons of people wouldn't think to go there first.

Besides the clerk, we were the only ones there. Thinking the shelves had already been stripped clean, my heart sunk as I rushed to the back of the store. To my surprise, there was hardly a dent in the well-stocked milk and egg and bread areas.

"But a squall's coming!" I nearly shouted to the clerk, handing him my load-up-to-hunker-down foods.

"Yeah?"

Seems squall in Western New York meant "some lake-effect snow possible," which happened nearly every winter day in Buffalo, a town and suburbs well knowing how to handle snowfall.