I see Idalia!

Our thoughts and prayers go out to those North of us, who didn’t escape the clutches of Idalia. For those of you who didn’t escape, she threw a terrible punch. She chose to ignore us this time, but we were definitely suspicious and super wary, up until she slid on by us and our power poles gave a collective sigh of relief.

We escaped with some minor flooding in our island neighborhood and a few downed branches at the shop house. I’m almost embarrassed to throw these pics out because I don’t want to diminish what happened up north. We know it’s no fun because we were there just 11 months ago with Ian. This exact dirt road, below, was under 4 ft of roaring water after Ian, trapping us for days on end and was littered with downed trees, power poles and power lines, under all that water. Luckily that wasn’t the case this time. We had 3 puny palm branches, that in no way impeded our Jeep’s path, and we’re very thankful.

So yes, we were very blessed this time around. The island flooding was a mix of Gulf drainage ditch failures and storm drain failures. No serious damage to report in Venice or Englewood and our family and friends in Tallahassee, Ocala, Estero and Sanibel Island are all ok, so I consider this a huge blessing.

Quite honestly, Ben and a friend smoked a couple of delicious turkey breasts under the lean-to, while it thundered and rained off and on all day. Meanwhile, Idalia was slowly creeping up past us, about 50 miles off-shore. You ask “why turkey in August?” Because the grocery store was throwing some pretty funky pre-storm meat specials.

Everyone still makes fun of me for making a huge batch of sloppy joes, brownies and boiling half the egg supply before Ian hit, last year, but we had food that got us through that 14+ hour windy adventure.

So, as things stand now, we’re loaded and ready to pull out Saturday morning on our 6,000 mile camping adventure. Gas seems to be plentiful post-storm and the Chattahoochee campground has confirmed we have a spot, undamaged by the hurricane, for Saturday night.

So now that the danger is out of the way, I’ve spent the day asking myself what number of undies are needed to make it through a month-long trip, not knowing where the next laundry facilities will turn up. As I stood staring a my pile of “serviceable undies,” I did a replay of all the “foul plays” I’ve had on the sides of various interstates and country roads and decided ALL should be packed and I threw in a couple of my “sexy” collection too, as backups. Just to be extra safe, I also packed a bucket, baby wipes and extra plastic grocery sacks for emergency disposal. I’ve actually learned quite a bit from my past mistakes. Hopefully I don’t have too many mistakes or I’ll be wearing a lacy thong by the time we hike through Moab. Yikes!

I also spent way too much time standing in the chip/candy aisle, (it’s an evil aisle!), debating what junk food I absolutely needed for the start of the trip. These are tough decisions for me, as my “junk food mood swings” go between salty and sweet and sometimes require mixing them. The Cheetos we’re definitely calling to me today. Dang it! Then I had to decide whether I needed two bags of Cheetos, as they were on sale, BOGO! UGH, I’m a sucker for a BOGO. I’m ashamed to say that I also got bamboozled by a king sized candy bar BOGO. Next thing I knew, I had a whole cart full of junk food. Even worse, when Ben finds out what I’ve done, he’s going to immediately parallel this situation to one my mom had in her advanced years of dementia, and I’ll start to silently wonder. Even worse than even worse, he’ll be pissed when he opens the one functional food cupboard in the Airstream and nothing but Cheetos and candy bars come pouring out (Note To Self… I need to remember to pack a couple extra pairs of the sexy panties. They’ll have two purposes). As long as he doesn’t open that door before Chattahoochee, we’re all good.

The two old lady wienies are definitely suspicious. They’ve been around long enough and have been tortured way too many times by road trips that they KNOW something is up. They’ve been sitting directly in the path between the house door and the Airstream door. Watching. Specifically taking inventory of what dog items are being taken to the camper, in a mission to confirm whether they’re “in” on this trip or not. I don’t understand the secret language that goes on between Bailey and Pepper but I think the “duh” looks on their faces mean they’ve decided they need to stay on my heels, just in case. By the time I take the dog food bin and the dog dishes to the Airstream tomorrow, they’ll figure out how to surgically attach themselves to me. And then there’s poor Charlie, who is only four years old and has only been out of the state of Florida three times. He’s completely oblivious to any suspicious activity and continues to hunt for things to bark at, just for fun. Too bad for him, because out of the three dogs, he’s the only one that hates riding in the car. The two old lady wienies just continue their 20 hours of napping and don’t care if they’re in a car, boat or a house.

More tough decisions to make tomorrow so I’m off to our king-sized bed, which I’ll only be enjoying for 2 more nights. Then I’ll enjoy squeezing into a “camper queen” with my handsome, but yeti-like, husband. Fun times ahead!