Reluctant Evacuees

Nobody really knows where Hurricane Irma is headed, but things aren’t looking good for Florida. As of last night they said there is a very good chance it would come up the east coastline, which puts us right in its path. We had planned on leaving Saturday to go up to Tuscaloosa, Alabama for my daughter-in-law’s medical procedure, but seeing the news and knowing what kind of gridlock is possible, we changed our minds and decided to leave early.

We really don’t want to go, but it seems like the wisest decision based upon the news reports.

So we spent yesterday getting ready to evacuate. While Terry was packing things, I uploaded a week’s worth of blogs about different places we have traveled over the years and set them to automatically post at midnight local time each day. Not knowing what’s in store for us, it’s one less thing for me to worry about. We are leaving early this morning, headed for Birmingham, Alabama, where we will spend three nights. Then we’ll go over to Tuscaloosa for three more nights.

The reason we aren’t going right to Tuscaloosa is because this is a University of Alabama football weekend and it’s going to be packed. The cheapest motel rooms we could find were $350 a night on Friday and Saturday nights. That’s a little beyond the budget.

When I started calling around yesterday afternoon looking for someplace to stay before we go to Tuscaloosa on Sunday, I quickly discovered that there are very few hotel rooms available anywhere south of Birmingham, and a lot of them are ripping people off on the rates. Some hotels in Montgomery whose website showed anywhere from $95 to $125 a night quoted me over $500 a night when I called to make a reservation and made no apologies for it.

Somebody asked why we are not taking the RV. When I made the reservations in Tuscaloosa three weeks ago, we were hoping that the RV would be sold by now. Besides, during football season RV sites cost over $100 a night and most are booked a year in advance. Those fanatical football fans will pay just about anything, apparently.

A lot of people have contacted us, offering to let us park our RV at their house and stay in the driveway, or just to come to their homes and stay. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate the generosity, but we are good for now.

Hopefully the storm will bypass us, or do minimal damage, but nobody really knows what to expect. It’s kind of ironic. Just the other night I was telling Miss Terry that for the first time in my life I’m 100% content. I have a wonderful marriage to an amazing woman, a great house in a community that we really enjoy, and I’m able to make a living writing my books. It just doesn’t get any better than that. Hopefully I’ll still have the great house to come back to. But do you know what? If the darned thing blew away, I’d still have a great marriage to a wonderful woman. That’s really all that matters.

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Thought For The Day – I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.