A Labor of Love

I had thought of many titles for this blog.  Some of the choices included:

• I told you so
• Never-ever again
• Mom knows best
• There is a God

All those titles are suitable but I chose A Labor of Love, because Labor I did and I’m back in Florida which I love. I had to get this story on paper while it is fresh in my mind…and surprisingly I’m still awake.

Here’s the background..

As most of you know I have this dental issue.  Crowns, etc.  And I have paid for this crown in Florida, now wearing a temporary, I wanted to come back to get my permanent crown.  So #1 I want my new crown, it’s paid for.  #2, I have a doctor here and we have a history and she knows my cholesterol issue and is watching a couple of other things for me.  #3 I need to see a dermatologist and well I have one of those in Florida too so here’s what I did:  I made all three appointments for this week, in Florida and decided I’d come this week and get the doctors appointments out of the way and hopefully figure out what to do with my storage and wrap up some odds and ends here in Florida.  Okay, sooo. Here we go…

Last Thursday, I get a phone call from the temp agency down here in Florida.  She has a job for me that starts on Monday.  I said PERFECT!! Not a “perfect” job but not bad, it was a temporary job, close to Stephanie’s (and where I used to live) so good this will work out well.  I’m leaving Friday and I’ll get in Saturday and be ready Monday.  I was also trying to get here for a party on Saturday in Pass-a-grille and meet some friends for the party.  So great I’m leaving Friday.  Then she calls back and said “wait, you can’t start Monday, you have to start Friday – to which I say “impossible – I can’t get there Friday.  It’s already Wednesday and it takes two days.”  So, oh well, so much for that, but still I’m heading down Friday, right?

Wrong, in comes Hurricane Matthew pounding the coast and no way I can leave Friday. I’d be driving right into the storm.  Not only can I not leave Friday I can’t leave until Sunday.  The temp agency calls me back and says the job said they’d take me as soon as I can get there.  Perfect again right?  I mean I have that car payment plus. So now I’m more motivated to get here because I also have a job.

Matthew hits the coast and then we even got lots and lots of rain at mom’s but no wind thankfully and no damage at her house, although I did have to get water out of the basement before I left.  I woke up Sunday, packed up the car with enough stuff to stay an indefinite amount, so like summer clothes, fall clothes, a sweater and sweatshirts, all my shoes, bathroom stuff, bills and stuff cause who knows how long this job will last.  Mom is nervous about me leaving because of the storm but I assure her that I have SIRI, there will be detours and I can get around the road closures. I need the job I tell her, I need the income.  I’ll be fine.

The very first road by my mom’s was closed and I had to find a way around that.  Once on the highway it was smooth, but windy conditions.  95 was open, clear, the sun was shining.  SIRI warned me of a couple of closures and took me right around and back on 95.  Easy-peazy. Although some of the work arounds were scary.

Then SIRI tells me to get off at a certain exit but I decide I’m going to follow the traffic because there was no warning of a road closure and well maybe she’s wrong.  This was the beginning of the nightmare.

I sat on I95 with hundreds of other people wondering what in the world was going on.  SIRI and all satellite service went down. I couldn’t even check Facebook while sitting there, I couldn’t get on the internet and google anything, I couldn’t text and I couldn’t call anyone.  I sat.  When finally we moved we all came to find out that I95 was closed and all of us had to exit.  Single lane and we all had to go left and get back on I95 going north.  I could see that I95 south was under water:

That’s all that we knew – SIRI is still not working.  There was a gas station (I still had a half  tank) but the electricity was off so no gas.  However I really had to go to the bathroom and they said no bathrooms.  It was bad.  This was a little strip plaza mall right beside the gas station, under water:

Okay, now I’m going north on I95, no idea what to do or where to go so I just decide to call it a night because now it’s around 6:00 and it’s getting dark so I see an exit with Holiday Inn and a couple other large chain hotels.  I stop at a Comfort Suites and at least got to use the bathroom in the pitch black (used my phone for light) – when I inquired about a room they explained that they didn’t have any available because they’re not sure who was checked out and couldn’t clean the rooms.  I ran into a woman in the lobby who was also trying to get to Jacksonville (that was my original goal for the day) and she said she was going to head north until she saw electricity and get a room.  I decided a good idea.

So now I’m heading north.  I haven’t eaten since a pack of crackers I had at breakfast.  Luckily I wasn’t hungry – probably from the stress and good thing because with all the power out there were no choices of places to eat anyway.  Okay Okay so now I’m heading north and somewhere in there Stephanie calls me as she was trying to help me get a room with her points so she starts looking on line for hotels.  I told her I saw lights off an exit ahead so I was exiting. I exit and the lights that I saw turned out to be headlights as there was NOTHING off the exit, just another highway.  So I start following this highway and follow signs for Elizabethtown. I just thought maybe there would be something there.  Stephanie is panicking along with me telling me there are no Marriotts in Elizabethtown and I have to turn back and go to Lumberton.  I told her NO! Lumberton has no power and I’m not going back there. She really argued with me so I told her to call Lumberton and if they answered and had electricity I would go back – Still I have no SIRI though and wouldn’t know how to get back there.  She called and there was no answer and then believed me that it was not an option.

Then in the middle of nowhere there is a Marathon Gas Station – open with lights – I was even able to use my credit card and got a full tank AND a paper map.  I was enthused and kept going towards Elizabethtown certain to find something. There was ONE Knights Inn listed and when I called for a room the main reservation line said they were completely sold out.  Undeterred and without any other choices I kept going.

Elizabethtown was pitch black – no lights whatsoever.  I happened to find the Knights Inn and stopped anyway. The lobby was open with candlelight. It was sketchy but I was tired. It was now 8:30 and I had been on the road since 10 am.  Normally a 3 hour trip – 4 at the most – took me 10 hours so far.  Anyway, they said they had plenty of rooms but were taking cash only.  The room was $70.  I had $72 cash.  So there was that. Good news bad news as I had other plans for that $70 but…So I got a room, no card key.  The end of that part is I slept in my clothes, shoes and all, on top of the bed.  The pillow was comfortable and I actually slept through the night. They had given me two tea light candles.  I think it was a blessing I couldn’t see the rest of the room.  I slept through and got up early and got a freezing cold shower and hit the road again.  Another sunny day.  Met another Florida bound comrade in the parking lot who asked me what I thought I’d do – which way I’d go – and I said I was just going to follow SIRI and he said he was going to try 41 (I found out later 41 was under water so he would not have made it.)

SIRI took me on a round about in the middle of no where:

20 miles into the detour she took me right to a road under water, then she quit working, totally. I figured no problem and that I would just go back the 20 miles the way I came but soon came to find out that I was lost. I had no idea where I was, no SIRI and there were down power lines in front of me.  I stopped and waited until I saw someone go over them then I did it too.

I was seconds away from turning North and going to back to Mom’s when Stephanie calls (and gets through!) I was telling her that I couldn’t find my way out – 95 was still closed and I didn’t know what to do.  Then I came upon another gas station – no gas available – no power – but somehow they had coffee and I had $2 left.  I sat in the parking lot and talked to Stephanie telling her the map was useless because it doesn’t show the back roads and it certainly doesn’t show the closed roads.  She was telling me to stop and ask at an IHOP.  I told her the only thing I was seeing were cotton fields:

But then she found a website called something like NC closed roads – In this miracle moment (looking back) I got a signal for about 5 minutes, found the website and saw that 410S and 74 West were marked green (meaning open) – the gas station happened to be on 410.  Then I lost the signal, but I had written it down and off I went. This route took me pretty far south and then back up north and west and supposedly was going to hook up with 95 after all the road closures in Fayetteville.  SIRI would interrupt every so often and tell me to turn here and there and I would just say “fuck you SIRI, I’m going this way” – 410 was open all the way, phew – and I got on 74 and started heading west and then I came to a spot where the road was under water, so I pulled over.  Everyone else was going through it.  You know exactly what they tell you NOT to do. I watched several cars go through.  I waited for about 20-30 cars, watched another low car and figured if they all get through I’ll go too.  And I did, go through, and I made it.

I passed a gas station that must have had power because the lines were incredibly long.

And then I got to 95 South – it was open – North was closed but I was going South. So South I went,  It took me two hours to get to that point.  I was probably 30 minutes away in Elizabethtown. Although there were hundreds of trees down along the road I95 through South Carolina they had cleared them from the roads.  There was water on either side in many places but again nothing “on” the road.  10 hours later I landed in Florida at Stephanie’s.

I heard that at some point during the day the levee in Lumberton where Stephanie was begging me to go to last night – broke and 1000+ people were being rescued on top of their houses etc. I also saw that both roads I took this morning are now closed, under water in spots, and I would not have gotten out.

I cried when I got on 95 and cried when I parked the car here. It was a long harrowing day.

I thought about my luck in running into that lady in the lobby (who I never saw again – an angel maybe?)  in getting off that exit last night when I had no idea where I was going – finding an open gas station – with power – In finding a room to sleep in even though I was told they were sold out.  In having $70 cash to pay for the room. In being able to sleep. Having Stephanie find that website and having 5 minutes of signal to see a green open route and then staying wide awake without incident getting here.  So happy to be in the warmth of Florida.  God was really liking me on this trip. There are so many horrible ways this story could have ended or still been going on but I’m here. Thank God, like for real I’m thanking God.

HOWEVER, I called the agency to tell them I was going to be here today.  They called back and said the first job fell through but they had a second job for lesser pay and an hour commute.  Downtrodden to say the least, knowing I still have a car payment plus other bills I knew I had to take it anyway. So depressed that I’m a bad person (at least in the area of career) I said okay and was told I had to start the next morning at 8 am and probably work the weekend but would get a day or so off next week and I’d have to cancel my doctor’s appointments. I mean the doctors appointments were the main reason for coming here – right?  Mom (in her new role of calming me down) convinced me to just wait and see what happens, which I did, having no choice anyway, and by 6 pm the agency called back and said that one fell through too.  Sooo, the whole push to get here, through the hurricane mess to start the job, to pay the bills is now a non-issue.  I have no job. I have enough clothes and supplies to last through December.  WTF

But here I am. I do not know if I’m staying just a week for the appointments and storage wars or will I stay longer and try again to be employed in Florida?  And what about leaving mom when didn’t I just say I didn’t think I could leave her?  And then I left her?  I have bills, I need to pay them.  I have to go where the job is.  I came here to where the job is, and then it isn’t.  That God has an odd sense of humor, but apparently was looking out for my safety, in a really big way.

I’m in my beautiful Guest bedroom in Stephanie’s house. She worked really hard to make it so nice for me.  I left most of my things in the car.  I basically live out of my car, but I’m thankful for good friends and family who let me “sponge” off of them.  I have a lot of paying back to do to friends and to God.

xxoxoxo