Brrrr.....Prepare for the COLD!

We live in the Midwest, and the weather here has been unusually warm for the past 2 winters. I would venture to say that last year was more like an extended fall. Today Old Man Winter has arrived, we have 2 inches of ice on the highways and side roads. The wind is fierce and there are TORNADO warnings! This has of course gotten me thinking of winter preparations, specifically of emergency winter preparations, our house is poorly arranged for living with out power, even temporarily we would be in a serious lurch. Our heat is propane, but without electricity we would not have ANY heat. We have a unusually TALL roof line, that has made putting in a wood stove improbable due to finances, so what is the back up plan in a power outage in freezing temps?? Our Bug out bus for sure! Our bus is equipped with a wood stove! I can see us now, all 9 of us piled into the bus, with blankets, pillows and GAMES playing as a family in a toasty warm bus, the family dining table is directly across from the Wood stove. One road trip as we were coming home from Goblin Valley, we hit an actual blizzard and the roads near Aspen Colorado were barricaded and closed. So we pulled into a parking lot, stoked the fire, and had a warm and cozy night of sleep. We could hear the semi's idling nearby on the highway, as they could not move, but we didn't have a care in the world. When we awoke the next morning, the snow was around 14 inches all around us but we simply drove right out of that parking lot, onto the newly plowed highway and trudged on home. I am grateful for the wisdom of my husband who INSISTED on installing a wood stove in our Bug out Bus. (there may, or may not have been ongoing battles about the appearance of pipes coming out of the roof....I may or may not have mentioned the Griswold's)