3/31/17 Blackouts In A Small Town?

    Wife called yesterday, unusually early, for her.  She is supposed to get out at 4:30, but ends up staying until 6:00pm most every night.  Today though, she called me at 4:40 that she was leaving work because the power was out at the school.  While she was telling me this, she was saying she needed gas and was pulling into a gas station.  I said good, because I was in the middle of biting into a slice of pizza.  A minute later she was back in the car, calling me back, which meant my pizza was going to get cold, saying that power was also out at the gas station.  I figure when it is a small town like where she works, it doesn't take much to turn the city off.
    Luckily, she stays at my mom's house, which is the next town over, roughly 15 miles away.  The power was ok over there.  Since she got out early and didn't have anything to do, she went and treated herself to a snow cone.  We rarely eat those here, in the big city, but they were close to a daily thing down there, specially in the summer.  Wife had an even closer connection, as her grandma was one of the places where you could go and buy "raspas" at.  As a kid, I remember I loved my raspa to be made out of a sweet milk.  It would seem syrupy and sweet as you bit through the ice.  Later I converted to a cherry lime flavor as a favorite.
    Now that I think about it, Wife knew of a place here in Austin where they would go get their snow cone fix up north somewhere.  It was always when I was at work, I don't think I'd drive all the way out to Airport and IDK, close to the old Highland Mall, for one of those things.
    Anyways, we haven't experienced too many blackouts, but someday I'd like to install one of those big house generators, if the power goes out, we can still be comfortable, at least with the air conditioning on.  We could get a small generator and get a window air conditioner, if we ever need it, we could all cower into one room together to be in air conditioned comfort. 
    Small town life was different, I am thinking of the many times we went swimming in the river that was like 30 miles away.  It was so much fun, I am feeling like I wish we had something similar here.  Schlitterbahn is alright, but damn!, $150 for season tickets hurts.  I hate the idea of being by the shore, like on Lake Travis, but maybe that could work until we can fit a new boat back in our budget.