Happy Birthday Sis

Dear Sue,

Your birthday card sits stamped and soggy on my dashboard, the victim of an unexpected six inches of snow and hail that hit us hard in Julian California.

Who knew this effing place was in the mountains and there would be an effing snow storm that left us stranded !  Oh, yeah, now I remember.   It was free.  Never trust anything free. 

This was a new "upscale" campground and all we had to do was listen to a 90-minute lecture.  We left the desert, the flooded, soggy, gritty, dirty desert with its four days of rain and climbed steadily upwards in the rain, until the rain turned to hail and we turned to each other with one of those "uh-oh" looks.  By the time we reached the campground, it was hailing so hard it was painful.

And the "resort" was unoccupied.  Nobody home.  Of course it was.  It was a GD snowstorm and they weren't going to get stuck in it.  We pulled in and got ourselves up to the highest point, the lowest having flooded so bad, all the new picnic tables were now under water.  We hunkered down for the night.  Thank you God for a generator and a tank full of fresh water.  A knock on the door brought us upright. 

"You're parked in the construction workers' parking lot," said a genial sort, a worker type. 

And here we stay. 

"Everybody's gone."  We know, we know.  But we're here for the night and we'll get out in the morning.

We had franks and beans and Kraft dinner.   Comfort food.  Played cards, then went to bed.  The bus rocked us to sleep in the thousand-mile-an-hour winds. 

The next morning we awoke to six inches of snow.  Oh Lordy.  I couldn't put the slides in because the snow on them was cemented into place.  Our ladder is only four feet tall, so John scouted up a bigger ladder and got up to brush it off with the only things we had available: the sponge mop and the spatula.  I held the ladder.  Every bit of snow he brushed off landed smack on my head.  He was in that "crutzarackaracka" mood like the Dad in "A Christmas Story" and I was laughing my ass off, only to myself because he definitely would not have looked kindly on my amusement.  He was wet, cold and his supposedly waterproof raincoat was dripping red dye everywhere.  He swore he was bleeding.  It must have felt that way.  His efforts were heroic.

I held the ladder, wore snow and chuckled in silence.

Of course I had to take pictures.  Here's me with seven layers of clothes on, including two fleeces and two scarves.  If John was the father in "A Christmas Story," I was the little brother who fell down in the snow and couldn't get up. 

Meanwhile, the door to the coach stayed open, and snow came in and soaked your card.  That's all right; it was a dorky card anyway.  I'll send it as soon as it dries.

Meantime, I hope you have a most wonderful birthday.  I certainly will enjoy it.  I'm warmer and drier in San Diego, and thinking of you.  I love you to the stars.  Sorry about the card.

Love
Betty