Avoiding certain death and destruction

A knock on the door after dark usually goes unanswered by me, and this one would have been the same if it had not been that the man standing outside – the State Park Ranger – had already talked with us earlier that evening. Earlier he mentioned that the storm coming in would be severe and that if we heard the tornado sirens we should shelter in the bathrooms. The bathrooms were sturdy cement buildings; much safer in tornado weather then a trailer. I did put some clothing on and made sure he did not have more to add to the warnings… he did not.

That knock is all it took to finally put Kerri past the edge of comfort. And the weather was to arrive by the time we woke the following morning. She talked about abandoning our site and making a run for it, but the question of “where?” mattered. If we drove only an hour in any direction, we were in no better situation. In fact, it could be worse in the new location. There was no way to tell. Finally, after a few hours attempting to get Kerri to fall asleep, we made the decision to abandon and run as far South as we could.

We packed up, and hitched up the trailer in record time but we were still leaving at midnight on a weekday. Kerri valiantly drove for three and a half hours which would take us out of the “red” zone and into the “orange”. We were still in danger, and now in a Walmart parking lot. After only four few hours of much needed sleep we got moving again, before the storm now scheduled to arrive a few hours later. Another one and a half hours of driving brought as near the Florida border and to where Kerri wanted to spend the rest of the work week; The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge

Not only did we sleep better, the scenery was amazing and the swamp was top-notch. The storm came in later that evening, after sunset, and put on one heckuva lightening and thunder show, but nothing worse than we had been in dozens of times. Kerri checked in on Macon, GA (where we came from) online, and while no tornadoes wiped out any campgrounds or trailers, we feel we made the right decision nonetheless. We lost out on the campground fees (no refund), and some sleep, but sometimes those losses just have to be taken. Thankfully, we have the luxury of hitching up and leaving any time we want.