Lessons From an Accidental Campout
John and I went camping a couple of weeks ago. Toasty fire. Dinner by flashlight. Scrabble by candlelight. “All Things Considered” on a hand-cranked radio. If I’d had more notice, I’d have had the makings of ‘smores on hand. But this wasn’t one of those adventures for which you plan ahead (unless you are one of our overachieving neighbors with a generator). This was an accidental campout. It began at 7:45 on a Monday morning, when our little rural mountain electric co-op texted that we were part of a widespread outage. That we got the text at all was amazing, since our cell service up here generally ranges from zero to half a bar. We heat the house with propane, but we need electricity to turn on the furnace. The house was cold and would get chillier as the day wore on. John and I sat in bed and stared at our phones while wearing puffy jackets and stocking caps. No hot coffee. No hot tea. No hot anything. The text from the co-op estimated our power would return betwee...
