The end of last week and this past weekend didn't quite turn out as I'd planned. You might have noticed that there was no post last Wednesday or Friday, but I was so busy with packing that I just didn't get around to it.
Having lived in Charleston, South Carolina, for the last three decades, I know there's always the chance that we might have to evacuate during hurricane season. Thankfully, we've only had to evacuate twice since I moved back in 1996: once for Hurricane Floyd, and then this past weekend.
If you read my weekend update a few weeks ago, you'll know that I purposefully didn't plan any travel after our trip to Asheville in mid-September. Life had other plans, as we got to evacuate to the upper part of the state last Wednesday. So much for staying at home and resting before tiny Mariner #2 makes his arrival in early November!
Landon and I had been keeping an eye on the Hurricane Matthew updates on Monday and Tuesday, and ultimately, we made the decision to evacuate. I don't think either of us wanted to take any chances of riding out a potential category 3 or 4 hurricane with a three-year-old and being 36 weeks pregnant.
Where we live, just north of downtown Charleston, was where Hurricane Hugo made landfall back in 1989--and where Hurricane Matthew also made landfall on Saturday. I definitely didn't want to get stuck without water or power or the ability to get to the hospital if things went south!
We headed to my in-laws in the Upstate and spent several days exploring the area. We tried to stay busy in order to keep our minds off the potential devastation heading towards our house back in Charleston...and to keep our preschooler from worrying about all of the thunder and lightening that she was sure was coming to get her. (She hates storms!)
It was a taking-lemons-and-making-lemonades thing, and we ended up having a tiny mountain vacation in the midst of all of the stress and worry.
Our hurricane-vacay itinerary had some pretty fun activities:
Visiting Stumphouse Tunnel and Issaqueena Falls in Walhalla, South Carolina,
Taking our daughter fishing,
Returning to our alma mater for some ice cream on Clemson University's campus,
and
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| Clemson, which has one of the few dairy science programs in the country, has its agriculture students make their own ice cream. The result is some crazy delicious ice cream that is sold right on campus! Britton chose orange ice cream because "Mama, we are at Clemson. Tigers are orange!" |
Best of all, when we got home around lunchtime yesterday, we found our house standing and without much damage. A few pieces of siding came off, and a bit of our roof is on the ground, but everything stayed watertight. We also lost a few of our smaller trees, but overall, the damage was minimal. So many others (both here in South Carolina and in the Caribbean) didn't fare as well, and my heart goes out to them as they face the recovery process.
I hope all of my readers in the path of Hurricane Matthew are able to quickly put their lives back together. For those of you lucky enough not to have to deal with a hurricane this past weekend, I hope you had a wonderful and relaxing time!
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