The Winds Blew and the Rains Came

We are now in Saint Augustine.  Our drive was not totally event free, but all things considered, we are grateful to be settled in our campsite.

Our original plan, based on the local weather forecasts, was to leave early in hopes of being ahead of the rain.  By this morning, the forecasts had changed and we felt leaving early would still serve us well.  The rain started earlier than originally predicted, but at 8 AM there were only light sprinkles and the worst was still to the west of us.  We didn’t make the 8 AM target time, but by 8:15 we were ready to roll.  That 15 minutes, however, was all it took to be in a heavy downpour by the time we had driven the 2 miles to the interstate.  Within 20 miles we were ahead of the heavy rain and had only light rain for the remainder of our 200 mile drive to Saint Augustine.  We made good time thanks to good road conditions and very light traffic. Even the drive through Jacksonville was easy.  We made two short break stops, but didn’t linger as we didn’t want the rain to catch up.

The only out-of-the-ordinary event, other than that heavy rain, happened about a mile after our second break stop.  The “water in fuel” light came on.  That hasn’t happened in a very long time.  Gene routinely empties that little reservoir each month and we hardly ever have the indicator light come on when we’re driving down the road.  We pulled off at the next exit and into a gas station.  Gene has his goody box in the back seat and in there was a lawn and leaf bag which he used so he wouldn’t have to get down on the wet pavement.  He also had the bottom half of a milk carton which he used to drain the reservoir.  We were back on the road in about 10 minutes.

We got to our campground and all set up before the storm finally caught up with us.  Boy, was it a storm.  When they issued tornado warnings for our area, we gathered up the Peanut and our computers and headed to the bathhouse.  We went in the men’s side because there was a couple with a couple cats already in the women’s side.  We parked ourselves there for about 45 minutes until the worst had passed.

This was only the third time in our travels that we have had to take shelter in campground facilities.  The first time was on our first long trip.  We got caught in tornado warnings in Kansas while at the High Plains campground.  We were in a tent that time.

Our shelter as we waited for Hurricane Francis to pass

The other time we were on the Appalachian Trail in North Carolina when a hurricane hit the east coast.  We were about 200 miles from the end of our hike when we first heard about the hurricane.  Of course, we were a long way from the coast, but heavy rains and high winds were still in our forecast.  We monitored the weather as closely as we could on the trail without a radio.  We packed in an extra days worth of food in anticipation of having to hold over in a shelter.  That day came as we crossed over Max Patch with the rain already coming down.  By the second morning in the shelter, the sky had lightened up.  The barometer on Gene’s watch had begun to change--we knew we were good to go.  Funny how you remember such details from times of crises.

Anyway, today’s storm has past and we are safe and sound, snug as bugs in a rug.  We haven’t yet worked out our plan for our time in St. Augustine.  We’ll figure something out for tomorrow.  I highly suspect it will be laundry and grocery.