We had plenty of warning.  We knew Earl was coming and so had decided to stay in on Saturday.  In the days before, we had visited two yarn stores, a book store, a game store, a grocery store, and two distilleries.  We were well provisioned.

We spent the morning in the water, then dried off and made breakfast (french toast of course).  By noon, it was getting blustery.  Some time around two, I stepped outside to try and get a picture.  Even standing on the porch under a substantial roof, I was thwarted by blowing rain.  You can just make out the light house on the far shore and the waves crashing over the dock.  By three, the power was out.  By four, the spray from the waves was hitting our windows.  We played Pandemic and watched the storm.

We also made soup.  There’s nothing better than soup when it’s stormy, and it’s easy to make in an unfamiliar kitchen with limited supplies.

Now you may have noticed I mentioned the power went out.  Did I mention that the stove was electric?  That did somewhat complicate the soup preparations.  Luckily, there was a grill.  Yes, we made grill soup.  Well, first we made grill stock, and then we made grill soup.  It worked much better than I expected.  It was a bit slow, but we weren’t going anywhere.  It also meant we got to go out on the porch every 20 minutes to stir things and thus got to truly ‘experience’ the storm in a personal way.  By the time the soup was ready, it was quite dark.  We scrounged around the cabin and found a few candles.  We set these up on a mirror and propped another mirror up behind them.  How’s that for an elegant candle-lit anniversary dinner?

(And sorry for the cruddy pictures.  Timing waves while dodging raindrops is harder than anticipated.  So is getting enough light for a decent pic from four candles.  We’ll call them ‘atmospheric’ and hope they more or less convey the mood despite their flaws.)