The power is out. Hurricane Ike’s left over winds ripped through Ohio this weekend and knocked down power lines all over the place. They’re not sure when it will come back on but my office is closed and so is Benjamin’s day care.

I’ve managed to pirate a signal and some time (thanks to Thomas the Tank) to write a quick post.

Benjamin and I went to a music festival this weekend.

On the first day we were in the kids area, by one of those big inflatable jump houses, when a very cute dad looked our way. He had blond hair, deep blue eyes and a fantastic smile. Again no ring. But I couldn’t be sure. So many married men, I’ve noticed, don’t wear their rings. (WHY is that by the way? Not fair).

Our kids ran in separate directions and I didn’t see him again until later in the afternoon. Benjamin and I were back at our camp site. We’d wandered down to the lake’s edge. I was tired. It had been a long day. Festivals, solo with toddlers, can be trying.

“Wow! Look at him,” a man said, “we might have to join you in there!” I snapped around, startled. It was the dad… he was camping also, and his site was right near ours. And then I looked in his eyes. So beautiful. I didn’t know what to say. Did he have a wife? Was she right there in the tent? Should I even talk to him?

I freaked out. My nerves keeping any words from flowing other than, “Yeah, I think the water is safe… muddy though.”

He went back to his site and Benjamin and I marched up the hill to see Uncle Dennis and Uncle Larry. We spent the rest of the night building our camp fire, setting up the tents and I kept scoping out my neighbor’s camp site, but no sign of a woman – just an older woman, perhaps his mother.

The next morning I saw him by the water.

Benjamin wanted to swim so we headed down again. And this time he came right up behind us and sat down, “so where are you from?”

“Just up the road a bit, my mother lives here.”

And then the conversation started. In a few minutes I found out that he was indeed a single dad, who had quit his lucrative traveling job to be close to his kids. And instead of renting again he bought land and has his hands full building his own house, a cabin, in the middle of no where.

“You should come see it sometime,” he suggested, “I’m only 2 hours from you.”

He changed the subject when I didn’t jump on the invitation, realizing perhaps, that such a proposal sounded slightly crazy. We’d only just met. “I’m out there and it’s hard because I have no one to talk to,” he went on telling me about his area of the country where the people are scarce and the woods thick.

His children, a girl and a boy – 3 and 6 – were trying to distract him. His son started climbing up on his back, strangling him. Benjamin mimicked him and soon we could barely talk. “See, this is the thing, I can’t talk to people without kids because they just don’t understand. This, right now, would end it.”

“Yes,” I nodded, “I call them the childless.”

He burst out laughing.

“Well, we’ve got to pack up, but seriously if you want to come out sometime I would love it.” He gave me his number and his e-mail address and I’m really considering it…

I was attracted to him. There was a spark.

I just wish I would have asked him the instant we met if he was a single dad or not – then we could have spent the entire evening talking. Darn it.

So what do you think? Would it be completely crazy to spend a weekend with a virtual stranger in the middle of no where? In a cabin that isn’t even finished yet?

Sounds so incredibly romantic… could be a little adventure, a much needed distraction at the least. I’m all ears. But I’m seriously thinking about going. And the old woman on his camp site was his mother. His father was there too… very sweet guy.

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