Goodbye Florida

After a week of insanely strenuous work, we’ve once again fled Florida to avoid a hurricane. This time, we’re gone for good. We left Perry, Georgia exactly two weeks ago and, thanks to 10 hours of straight driving, we’re back again - this time, in the Super Walmart parking lot.

When we returned from the last evacuation, we reserved a truck for the earliest available date (Tuesday the 21st) and worked to organize everything at the rental house. We were determined to stay in the RV full-time but last Sunday night we had a strong rain and wind storm unrelated to the hurricane that moved Ed and I into the house early Monday morning. Gera had already left for work, so we both crashed into the king bed in the master bedroom. Unfortunately, we shut the door behind us and that was a mistake. The old doorknob mechanism had worn down and no longer triggered the catch. With all the storm shutters over the windows and the screws and doorknob hardware on the OUTSIDE of the bedroom, Ed and I got trapped. After futilely hammering off the knob with an old sneaker (no tools in the empty bedroom) and several unsuccessful efforts to contact Gera with the cell phone, we resigned ourselves to just stay in bed until she got home at 3 o’clock. At least we had a bathroom available! Sick humor that the Ward’s have, this story now ranks up there with the top funniest moments in Ward history. Mom even placed it in the same category as the funniest moment of all time, Kevin Mitchell crashing his bicycle into a station wagon and flying through the back window. Of course, the “trapped in the bedroom” fiasco is all true and most of “Kevin” (as we’ve come to reference hilariously sick moments) is made up. Even though it seemed annoying (then funny) at the time, it turned out to be the most sleep I got all week, possibly even more than the rest of the week combined, so I’m glad it happened.

Tuesday, we loaded 85% of our belongings onto the Uhaul truck and took them to the storage unit. The truck was Gera’s idea (I was going to move stuff piecemeal with the RV) and it’s the best under $60 rental plus $12 in gas we ever spent. We had the storage unit ¾ full by 4 pm Wednesday. The other 15% of our belongings we planned to sort through in detail and organize over the next three weeks. That plan lasted about a day. Jeanne decided to come straight at us, and we scrambled to condense three weeks into two days. Friday, we sold our Taurus to a dealer in Melbourne and bought a tow dolly for the Accord at a trailer place in Cocoa. We also loaded almost all the rest of our stuff into the RV and moved it to storage.

The mandatory evacuation order was for 6 am Saturday. We left the rental house at 3 pm Saturday. Surprisingly, many people did not leave. After a quick stop at the storage unit to drop off a few remaining items and hook up the Honda to the dolly, we were on our way! We got to know (and like) Perry, Georgia during Frances so that’s where we came. However, Jeanne is following us up I-75, so Alabama here we come!

Time to play pick up sticks!

Our old house lost its fence to Frances

The Chevron across from our old house

Back in Satellite Beach

After two days on the road we’re back home but, since the RV already seems like home, Satellite Beach is more like our “soon to be former” home. Since all the food in the rental house’s fridge rotted while the electric was out, we are staying in the RV until the smell is gone.

We left Georgia Monday and stayed in Northern Florida until Tuesday. I had an interesting moment after waking up. I realized we were far away from our temporary home in Georgia and at a new campground but my surroundings were the same indoors. Having spent most of my traveling time in hotels, I appreciate how nice it is to wake up in a new town and still have all my stuff in the same place it was in the last town. Home really is anywhere we park and that feels great!

What wasn’t great was seeing the devastation Frances left behind here. South Patrick Shores really took a beating. Fortunately, we only lost the food and our satellite dish. The house had some water come in under a gap in a door but only a small section of carpet got wet. The fence was badly damaged and the big tree out front lost all its bark. The neighbor’s tree (which always blocked our view when pulling out of the driveway) is gone, so that’s one good thing! The bugs have invaded in force to escape the storm so we’ll be spraying and squashing for awhile.

Mom and dad’s place got hit hard. They lost their screened porch, part of the shed roof and the roof of the house was damaged. It is salvageable but will need quite a bit of work. We’ll do what we can for them and try to get our stuff into storage before the next hurricane, named Jeanne, hits. If we leave Florida again, it’ll be for good. California here we come – earthquakes, wildfires, tsunamis, oh my!

Eddy

Chris

Our site at the Crossroads Travel Park campground in Perry, Georgia

Uncertainty and satisfaction

Ivan’s uncertain approach, with the latest NOAA projection putting its eye right through the center of Georgia Tuesday night, leaves us wondering where to go next. Back to Florida would put us in harm’s way along with all the people still trying to recover from Frances’ devastation. Staying put for too long could leave us susceptible to hurricane force winds – something I don’t intend to try in a motorhome. We will probably stay until Sunday morning then head west. It’s a wait-and-see game now. We’d rather not venture too far from Florida on the chance Ivan will divert to Mexico or the Atlantic and give Floridians a much needed breather.

Having lived full-time aboard our rolling home for more than a week, I’m very satisfied and pleased with the experience. Even though this rig is 15 years old, the quality is evident as the on-board systems are performing well. I’m learning about the ins and outs of everything and sharing much of it with Gera so she will eventually be able to handle it all herself in case I have a massive fibro flare-up somewhere along the way. Ed is also gaining some good knowledge of the systems and how they are different from a fixed home. This is definitely the right age for him to have this adventure. Any younger he may not have been able to handle some of the responsibilities involved. It’s a challenge for him now but in a healthy and educational way.

Unfortunately, we haven’t spent much time on this trip just enjoying the adventure. While not dealing with the hurricane uncertainties, we’ve been trying to organize the RV and purchase necessary items to make living aboard as comfortable and convenient as possible. In our mad rush to leave we forgot some things we need but there are other things that just don’t translate well from a stationery house to an RV. We’ve bought two vacuum cleaners at the Super Walmart here in Perry. The first one is a compact Eureka that has a folding handle and self-contained storage of its attachments. The second is a one-gallon, 12 volt wet/dry vac. We have full size equivalents of both at home but they are just too unwieldy and space-consuming for the RV.

I also bought a satellite dish and small tripod mount while here. Unfortunately, the tripod is too low to the ground to clear the trees in the campground. It’s going back to the RV parts place tomorrow. I’d like to get a taller tripod or even a ladder mount for the dish but the dealers are sold out of many such item. Lots of evacuees brought their RVs here. We can live without satellite (the campground has limited cable TV). We were just hoping to get the weather channel to watch Ivan’s progress. However, having that on all the time would probably just stress us out too much. Gera got pretty upset reading Florida Today online this morning. The pictures and stories are overwhelming. People there are still without power which means no air conditioning or refrigeration, not that there’s all that much fresh food available. I hope to God hurricane Ivan passes them by or it’s going to be awful.

Gera heard from Mimi by email so she gave her a call. Charley caused some roof damage to her house in Ormond but she is facing a bigger problem – her electric storm shutters broke as she attempted to open them without power after Frances. Since there’s no A/C, she needed open windows but now she may not be able to close the shutters for hurricane Ivan. Mimi also told us about their co-worker from Bank of America, Sue. Her house in Melbourne Beach was completely destroyed by a small tornado during Frances. The roof was ripped off and the entire house flooded. There is nothing left of the fence but splinters! What a tragedy. We’re going to have to get in touch with the other B of A folks if they are reachable.

Living almost a week in middle Georgia has given me some relief from the fatigue and windedness I usually face in Satellite Beach. I still have the other FM symptoms but the CF seems less. Perhaps in the long term, with the CF symptoms subsided, the FM symptoms will lessen too. I’m investigating mail forwarding services and other things that will allow us to stay permanently out of Florida if necessary. I don’t mind beginning our cross-country journey early as long as we can tidy up the loose ends remotely. It may only require a plane trip back for a short stay next month. Stay tuned…

Ivan the terrible

Hurricane Ivan is speeding up the corridor and I wonder if we should return or stay put. Ivan could pummel Brevard by Monday night. While things are returning to normal there, gasoline is still problematic. If Ivan causes another mass evacuation, there may not be enough gas to get everyone out.

Dad reminded me to say we have the Honda with us but only because Gera drove it while I drove the RV. We didn’t have time to outfit the Honda and RV with a baseplate and towbar, so we used our Talkabout family radios to communicate between vehicles. It worked very well but I’m looking forward to having the Honda towable for our leisurely trip out West. Before the evacuation we were debating if we’ll need a tow car or not. There is no longer any doubt that we want a “toad” to see the sites while leaving the RV connected up at the various campgrounds we’ll visit.

Mom & dad’s Melbourne neighbors were kind enough to drive by our rental house and check things out for us. Happily, the house itself seems completely intact. Fence slats and a large cactus are down and a satellite dish is a little worse for wear, but everything else seems fine. It’s a great relief. Thanks Carl, Ginney & Ricky!

Three strikes, we're out?

It’s been a crazy four days! Wednesday night and all day Thursday we packed the RV full of all the essentials and took off about 9:30 Thursday night. Most of the beachside residents were already gone but that worked out for the best. We were able to get to Seffner, Florida without any traffic delays. We did pass over the Florida Turnpike and it looked like a parking lot! We arrived at the TA travel center about 12:30 am and crashed there in total exhaustion. This definitely wasn’t the way I wanted to spend our first family night in our traveling home. Nevertheless, we were grateful for a place to lay our heads, far away from harm.

Friday we traveled up Interstate 75 and ended up in The Spirit of the Suwannee campground. It’s a huge site not far from the Georgia border in Northern Florida. Ed swam at the pool and met a boy from Okeechobee named John. They did cannonballs together and had a great time. I did notice my lungs had that refreshed feeling I haven’t had in a long time when I woke up Saturday morning. The fatigue hadn’t been too bad several days before we left Satellite Beach but it was virtually gone after a good night’s sleep. If it hadn’t been for the back breaking work we did moving all our stuff in the rental house to higher, safer areas – I would have felt “normal” again.

We were thinking of staying another night there but, at the time, Frances was still moving along pretty fast so we departed for Georgia. Before I decided to leave, our neighbor’s dog slipped on their new RV step and gashed his hind quarters badly. A couple of young sisters saw the blood, one of them screamed and that sent the other into a seizure! This all happened 15 feet from our RV and brought many people to the area. I took this as a bad omen for staying there, although it was more the weather than anything else that changed my mind. It turned out to be a good decision. Although The Spirit of the Suwannee is a very nice campground, it’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere (at least that’s how it seemed to me, not being familiar with the area). We ventured a couple hundred miles north to Perry, Georgia and were lucky enough to find one available site at Crossroads Travel Park. What we did here and in North Florida was stop for awhile at a rest stop and truck stop, connected to the internet and found campground listings for the area. All of the Southern Georgia campgrounds were full Friday and that’s why we stayed in Florida. Saturday, we ran into a similar problem here near Macon with many campgrounds filled up or not having pull-through sites and such. Crossroads had one official spot left so I reserved it. We arrived half an hour later and pulled in to hook up. Unfortunately, wisps of smoke were coming off the electrical box, so we couldn’t hook up! Nobody was onsite who could fix this problem so we thought we’d have another night in a parking lot. The folks at the campground were very nice and helpful though and put us onto an overflow spot on the grass. We can’t dump here since the spot has no sewer hook-up, but we’ve got water and electric that doesn’t give off smoke! The other nice thing is we’re near civilization. We were able to shop at the Super Walmart down the road last night and today we drove to the Macon mall. It helps to keep a sense of normalcy when you’re otherwise pre-occupied with concern. My parents received news yesterday, before Frances had even made landfall, that their manufactured home’s porch was totally destroyed and laying in their neighbor’s yard. When I think of all our neighbors who had to spend so many days in shelters, I feel very lucky to have this RV. I’m also glad we sold our home at the beach and most of our stuff this year.

Ed got to play basketball and walk a dog with a 13 year old girl tonight. He found out she isn’t leaving the campground until Tuesday, so he votes to stay until then. I don’t know what we’ll do yet. The morning weather reports will help us know better. With hurricane Ivan already a major force and looking like it’s going to follow Frances’ path, I’m ready to forget about returning to Florida altogether. Gera doesn’t like the idea of just blowing off a job that has been very understanding during this hurricane and just before with her grandfather’s death. I understand and admire her ethic. However, I think they’d understand why we wouldn’t want to return for a third worrisome hurricane in less than a month. She took the job specifically because it was easy in/easy out. It was always just a stop gap between selling the house and hitting the road in the RV. It’s been nice having health insurance again while ramping up for the trip, but I can wait until we settle down again to continue treatments. We’ll see where this debate goes but I already know it’ll be back to Florida!

The adventure begins!

We're packing our 1989 Fleetwood Southwind motorhome in case hurricane Frances sets its sights on Central Florida. Hopefully, evacuation won't be our first big RV trip!