Power Outage - Vacation

With the Severe Storms and Tornados in the Midwest this past weekend, I hope everyone is OK.    We didn't have any damage to our home, even though winds exceeded 65mph at times, during the torrential rain and hail.  If you know me, I really detest storms!!  Unless it's SNOW and I'm at home, comfy and warm.  Late Sunday afternoon, we lost power.  We called in to our Power Company and were told we could call the Power Company's Repair line...
and get an automated report as to when we could expect power restored.  So, we spent Sunday evening in the dark, except for a candle or 2 and a flashlight.  We went to bed about 11pm...and when we got out of bed at 7am, there still was no power.  The temperature in the house had dropped overnight to 60°.   So, I called the Power Company.

Imagine my surprise when the report said FRIDAY, 11pm was when they'd get around to us!  I couldn't believe it!  And it was to get down to a low of 29° overnight Monday!

Hubby didn't see a problem with that and us "roughing it" again overnight on Monday, without power.  Well, I just couldn't stand the thought of one more night in a pitch black house, in a pitch black neighborhood - No Food, No Way to Cook Any Food, the Cold and my growing claustrophic anxiety being in total darkness.  And then there are our 3 Precious Little Dogs {biggest one is an 18# male Havanese - smallest is a male Maltese who is 8# and the other "in the middle" is a female Toy Poodle}, who were already looking a bit chilled...and wanting to hide under blankets or be in the PJ's!

So, I mentioned finding a Hotel/Motel that would accept us and our Pups.  He said, absolutely not...No way!  So, I started making calls and found a nice Hotel/Motel about 20 minutes away from us, who wasn't going to charge us an arm and a leg!!  We went to the Quality Inn in Holland, Ohio...just off the freeway.  It was nice, quiet and most of all......WARM!!  And the people running the place were extremely friendly.  We told them that we'd pay daily before 11am, which was check-out time.  We settled in, picked up some food and enjoyed the light, TV and warmth.  We all slept soundly and comfortably.  Hubby made a morning trip up to our house, to check on pipes and conditions.  It was 50° inside the house and dropped another degree before he headed back down to the Hotel.  I'm so glad we left!!

When I called while hubby was out - to get the latest report on our electrical outage - it still said Friday, but 9am.  Goodness...and it was to get down to 26° Tuesday night.

Shortly after hubby returned to the Hotel, we made our payment for another night at the Quality Inn...and started making plans for our day.  Then our cell phone rang - it was our neighbor, whose son had driven past his house to check on it.  He said his son was astonished {as was our neighbor}, when the son saw the kitchen light on in his dad's house!!  Yeah, power.  Darn, just paid for another night at the Hotel.  Cha-Ching $100.

However, when we told the office people that we had power at home and would be leaving - and we asked them if they could do anything for us, since we just paid them 15 minutes ago...they said no problem...they'd charge us just the late fee - which was $10 an hour.  We knew we'd be out in about 2-3 hours, while we waited for the temp to come up from 49°.

Here's where the story gets even better!!  We were checking out at 2:00pm...which would have meant a $30 charge - but they charged us NOTHING EXTRA at all!  That was such a Blessing.  The $100 we spent for an afternoon, night and morning {along with a HUGE and delicious continental breakfast} 

was well worth it.  If we ever need to stay someplace because of a power outage - or for any other reason - it will certainly be at the Quality Inn in Holland Ohio!!  And the best part was that our Pups were all with us!!

And the day away never phased them - they jumped right on their blanket and fell asleep as soon as we were in the door!