Day 68 / 69

Friday night we found ourselves 90 miles inland and as it turned out 110 miles from the eye of Hurricane Matthew.   If I had it to do over again I would have gone 200 miles inland.  About 3am its winds and rain hit us.  Rocking the trailer and pounding down with hard rain.  The water and power in five surrounding counties was turned off.   We still had battery power and bottled water but it became so black you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.  Since we were in a hurricane and possible tornado watch it was scary.   I mean, how do you watch for a tornado when you can't see your hand in front of your face.  So we laid in bed, listening to the roar, and hoping that the rain would not turn into hail indicating a possible tornado.   Radio warnings are not really specific and with no tv weather channel to watch we were literally in the dark.   After a few hours of wondering we got a text.   Since our cell service was getting no service nearly all the time I don't know how it even got through but it did.   Our son Matthew, at 3am his time text us and sent a picture of the weather channel hurricane status map and a video of its possible route.   Seeing that we could see that there were no tornados and that Hurricane Matthew had passed Savannah and we were now in the tail end.  We had no way to know if it had turned inland and was heading toward us or spinning off tornadoes until Our Matthew sent us that text.   It was a huge comfort for us to know that the worst had passed.  I don't know what he was doing up at 3am other than giving his parents a sigh of relief.  Thank you Matt.

The next morning we checked out our dirt road, it was mud with a lot of debris and a couple trees in the way but passable.  We drove to Sylvania to decide if we would stay another day without water pressure, internet, power, or phone service.

We decided it would be best to wait until Sunday to move on.   We have had lots of adventure on this trip, spending a day in the trailer without outside communication or power is definitely one I would not care to repeat.   When we got to Sylvania,  only one service station was open and a grocery store both operating on their generator power.  The rest of the town was dark still without power. I was glad I had filled up on Friday as the station was mobbed.  We bought some more bottled water and some Krispy Kreme Doughnuts at the grocery and returned to the trailer.

We saw lots of trees that had fallen and several vehicles that had slid off of the road.

This morning, Sunday, we got out about 9am and headed for Lake City, Flordia.  There were lots of convoys of utility trucks, dozens, heading toward the coast.   Power was still out everywhere.

Sylvania, Georgia, was one place we were glad to leave.

On the way South to Lake City there were several trees that had fallen across power lines.   This one took a pole with it.

If you wanted to see a road sign, look down.   Many had been toppled.

We couldn't leave Georgia without passing Miss Daisy's favorite grocery store.

Finally after five hours of driving, Florida.

Our route took us South except for one five mile stretch East toward Jacksonville leading to our RV Park.   That was the only time we encountered traffic.   A 70 mile an hour road dragging along 5-10 and sometimes dead stopped.   Looked like L.A.   We were glad we only had to do 5 miles of it.

Then we landed in Lake City.

It is so nice to be back in civilization with full power, phone, and internet.   (And a Starbucks)

Three hours after we had been on the East bound highway toward the coast, from our RV Park, we could see that the traffic was still at a crawl.   A beautiful day today, no clouds and 81 degrees.  Everyone that had evacuated on both sides of the interstate over three days were now heading home today to access their damages on only the Eastbound side.  

We got a call from the RV Park in St. Augustine telling us that they are up and running with water and power.   We will drive there tomorrow, hopefully the traffic will have subsided by then.  Thanks everyone for your wishes and thoughts as we conquered our fears and Hurricane Matthew.  And a special thanks to Our Matthew.  So glad that were are able to say, "See you all tomorrow"