Florida Epilogue

We got home from Florida last evening around 7:30 pm. All was well at home considering the horrible storms that had happened while we were gone. My rain gauges said we got about 4 inches of rain over the week we were gone. According to David, our intrepid house sitter, it all came in one big whoosh. Only damage we had was a ditch washed in front of the garage, and some dampness downstairs in a couple places. A far cry from the past when the down stairs used to flood. All the improvements to water management over the years have finally paid off. We also came home to everything outdoors grown by about 300% (including the grass). Today I will be baling the lawn after it dries out in the afternoon.

Our trip home from Southern Georgia was somewhat eventful. We continued to exercise Jerry’s GPS and stuck to the back roads. Coming up through central Georgia, we came through an area where the tornado damage was quite severe. There were trees and power lines down everywhere, along with damaged houses and outbuildings. It had all happened just the day before. We commented to ourselves, if we hadn’t spent a day exploring the Gulf Coast, we’d have been right in the middle of it coming home. We were very fortunate. As we were leaving the damaged area we saw two black limousines heading the other way. We guessed this must be the governor coming to inspect the damage. Then along around lunchtime we stopped at a Hardee’s for some food. It worked out great cause Vickie had her coupons with her, and we did the coupon and senior drink thing, s aving a lot of money. As we were getting ready to leave (I was driving) and got all buckled in ready to go, I started backing out when Jerry said, “You’d better wait for Vickie”. Somehow I saw her and Brenda sitting in the back of the car when I came out, and I even was talking to Vickie I thought. I almost left her at the Hardee’s somewhere in Georgia. Vickie got in the car and couldn’t figure out why we were doubled over in laughter. Seems she was detained by an old woman in the restroom who had to slowly tell her life’s story. We continued our trip again until we came upon a semi serious wreck in some small town in South Carolina. It was like it was the height of entertainment for their day. They had 3 fire trucks, 20 firemen, hordes of town folk, and every policeperson for miles around in attendance. I determined it must have been semi serious cause they were marking the pavement all around the cars with orange paint and diagrams.

After those two events, we continued home uneventfully, and were glad to arrive safely. We ended up traveling 1750 miles and averaged about 16+ MPG on the Tahoe with 4 adults and nearly everything we owned except major appliances. Most of the time we paid between $3.55 and $3.70 for regular gas. Doing the math, it cost us around $400 for gas for the trip. If you looked at 4 plane tickets say $275 ea plus parking at the airport, a rental car and gas while there, we still saved a bunch of money even with gas at the current prices. AND, we had a great time doing it on the back roads of America. I still say “See the USA in your Chevrolet” even if the gas is high. So with that I’m signing off till next time.

More later,

Wes