It's been a wild week in Ola Lola-land. Remember how Wednesday started off with a "best moment" scuba diving? What a day that turned into!
The short version is we had a very unexpected flash flood. It was unexpected because we had very little rain. Apparently, elsewhere up in the mountains there was a lot of rain! It all came roaring down toward us. This is not exactly the stuff best moments are made of.
Sometimes adversity brings out the best. Wednesday evening and into Thursday we got calls and texts and messages checking to see if we were okay. We got offers of help. People from the Office of Emergency Management stopped to talk and to make a report. (They've never done that before.)
And I got to help other people, mostly pushing stranded cars out of the receding waters and picking up things the floated away.
By Thursday evening the waters had long since receded. It doesn't take much rain - let alone a freak flash flood - to turn the area where the horses are into Lago de los Caballos (Lake of the Horses). The OEM people came back. They must have noticed be setting up my little sump pump because they stopped and asked if we want the area for the horses pumped out. With great gratitude we answered
"Oh, hell yes!" They pulled a gas-powered pump with a three-inch hose off the truck and proceeded to pump out the lake. What would have taken me three days they did in a couple of hours. I think in all of it, that was Thursday's best moment.
All weekend our friend Marie brought us food. It was so unexpected! And so wonderful. And we are so grateful. On Sunday Elaine finally had a chance to cook and we got to feed Marie and her husband. So many great moments shared!
The best moment Friday had to be finishing up the major clean up in time to open Ola Lola's. After working so hard for two days we felt a great sense of pride and relief and well, joy to finally finish the "heavy lifting." There is still work to be done but the hard part is done.
Saturday's best moment was a day of doing nothing! We mostly took it easy and recuperated a bit.
Sunday was supposed to be a day with friends and horses but a minor illness kept our friends home on the other side of the island. So it was just Elaine and Marie and I with our horses and short but very satisfying Easter Sunday beach ride.
On Monday Elaine was at a horse clinic in Rincon most of the day, both helping and learning. I spent the day catching up on stuff that needed catching up on. It started raining again late Monday afternoon. Between the rain and the Monday after a holiday weekend, Ola Lola's was still. I quietly closed a little early. The rain finally stopped so I took Amber for a walk to the beach.
And that was a best moment.
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