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!