Month: October 2016

We made it back in good time and were obviously worried about Selene. But by the end of the day she behaved as if nothing had happened.

We were happy that Selene was doing well and St. Augustine was not hit as hard as many had initially predicted. The storms/high winds did not create too much damage (as they always say), but the water did worse damages.

There was also lots of debris outside numerous residences and businesses, as they were cleaning up the water damage done to their properties. The city had also opened up city property lots to collect debris from those damaged residences, and every time we went to the beach and past the collection sites was a reminder on how much worse it could have been.

And not to forget scare number 4, the swelling in Frank’s leg, turned out to be a blood clod. This meant an immediate visit to the emergency room at the local hospital, which turned out to be more comedic than medical, and hospitalization in Jacksonville the following day.

So in the end, Selene was well, the city of St. Augustine and Frank were recouperating and the month of October a month of numerous scares.

Since the Spirit of Suwannee was booked after October 9th (could have fooled us as the place was half empty) we moved a bit north to Georgia and the Eagles Roost RV park.

Settled in after a short drive, took Selene for a walk

moved her into the RV and were just preparing dinner when she started having a fit that we thought she would not survive.

Went to the office and they were nice enough to refund us the rest of the days, so we could go home and have Selene checked by our vet.

We woke up and immediately turned on the TV and radio to see what St. Augustine was experiencing and were relieved to hear it was not a severe as everybody had predicted.

Whilst the hometown was working on it’s situation

we were trying to keep positive with our situation of working as if nothing had happened, thinking of home and dealing with Frank’s swollen leg. Carrying Selene in and out the RV would not improve the situation, but there was no other choice if we wanted to go for a walk.

Gotta make the best out of every situation.

So by the time we got to the RV park it was getting dark, Frank’s leg was swelling up and spirits were low all around. We did not know what would await us at the RV park, nor at home when we got back.

We checked in and were given some general information as to where the site was. By the time we got to the general area of the site it was dark and there was no way any numbering could be read from the road.

So we stopped the closest Golf cart and asked for directions. To make a long story short, by the time Frank maneuvered the RV around all the trees and into the spot, Kirsten swore we would sell the unit the next day.

Not such a bad job at daylight.

The first thing we did was switch on the TV to see how matters where at home and found out the hurricane was downgraded from Category 4 to Category 2 – could have stayed home !!!

At the beginning of the month Tropical Storm Matthew formed in the Caribbean just like any other storm.

It was upgraded to hurricane status and it’s path showed to be close to St. Augustine. As no major storm had hit St. Augustine in a long time, nobody was really worried.

The flood evacuation zones were close to us, but did not include us by October 4th. Robert our neighbor, and ex-FEMA reporter, had already send his wife off to the Florida Panhandle and advised it would be better for us to leave.

We figured since the evacuation zone did not include us yet, we could stay put and wait for things to develop.

During the night of October 5th to 6th, the evacuation zone was changed as the hurricane intensified and now included our condo. Now Robert got really worried and more than urged us to get out.

We called around and found a campground in Live Oak, FL that could accommodate us for 3 days and a campground in Georgia for another 4 days.

So we loaded up the RV and headed out like so many others

just to get trapped in traffic. It took us more almost 6 hours to travel the 120 miles/200 km to the Campground. On the way Frank’s leg was acting up and we thought it must have been the cramps he experienced at Compass RV the week before.