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!