Hi ali,
Wow! I do understand with your Aunt Pam as you were all there for a wedding thus needed your hair done, dress and the likes. I would have agreed with her on that point. :) But if no wedding, ahhh give me roughing it any day. lol They had on the radio station teh following days on what you could absolutely not go without in a power outage. Mine was my furnace in the middle of the winter as my fireplace doesn't heat much space here. (I do have firewood stored up in case of such emergency) and my water as we are on well water also here where I live. My only problem is that while I can put clothes on and layer them to keep warm, my animals are inside animals and they would freeze to death. Luckily all three are smart enough to crawl under a blanket when it is cold out even with the furnace on, so maybe that wouldn't be much of a problem like I would think.
Too bad they don't have us set up like my Dad's neighbors who are Amish. They have no electricity, but they do have running water. Not sure how they did that one, I would have to ask them. If they use any type of lights on their buggies and such, it is ran off of a car battery.
It does make you think though. :)
HH