The phone lines started working sometime in the middle of the night. RAZAlert woke me, informing us that the University of Arkansas was closed Thursday and Friday due to extreme conditions. From what we had heard, all the trees on campus were pretty much desemated.
It was much colder in Chet’s house than in ours. He’s 96, and didn’t need to be left alone over there, so I convinced him that it would be good for him to get out of the house, eat some hot food, have some coffee, and just not be stuck in the house by himself. His nurse came over, agreed, and told him that he was too cold. He finally took us up on the offer to stay at our house.
Around 12:30 p.m., Jill, Chet and myself headed over to Red Robin for lunch. I don’t think I ever appreciated a hot cheeseburger and fries (and a beer) more than I did at that moment. We all finished our food (including Chet, I was impressed) and headed over to Panera (which I’m now referring to as “Pantera”). There were more pastries available today, and I grabbed some more cinnamon scones and bear claws for later. Hot coffee tasted really really good. The wireless network was overloaded, so we couldn’t get online. Once again, batteries were recharged, and I recharged the laptops as well. We looked at all of my photographs of the neighborhood that I had taken this week.
Chet had never been to a place with Wifi before. He had a great time, and found it really interesting that people could come in there, eat, drink, and be online. I think most people who have grown up with this technology take it for granted nowadays.
We left Panera, and headed over to check out campus. The Old Main lawn was just destroyed. All the trees that Jill had been responsible for planting along Garland were destroyed. Basically, all trees on campus were dessimated.
We headed home, and started getting the house in order for Chet to come over.
I helped Chet over to the house, we let him have my big comfy chair by the fire, and settled in. It was up to 50 degrees in the house!
