The Week That Was!

~ the britchy one

Well this has been a hell of a week! I decided to call my son on Monday night and suggest I came to pick him up. He lives in Jacksonville NC and Florence was making a bee line for him. Surprisingly he agreed without a fight so I left at 6am Tuesday morning to drive down. It was a very stressful drive for once as there was very heavy rain on the way and a lot of uncertainty. The news reports were all about state of emergency and mandatory evacuation and I was quite afraid I wouldn’t be allowed through. There were also reports of no gas etc in N.C. I took two five gallon Jerry cans with me so I could at least get out of the state. I managed to fill up at Skippers in VA – 4 miles from the North Carolina state line which was great – ‘Loves’ rock! I had also stopped and got cases of water, bread and non perishable snack stuffs for people who were staying.

It was quite daunting seeing pretty much solid traffic heading north on I95 from Washington through to Rocky Mount NC and then across state to Jacksonville. I was worrying about traffic heading home because it was literally at a standstill.

At this point I’m going to give a plug to an app I swear by. There’s a navigation app called Waze. I’ve used it in both the UK and Ireland as well as the US and Canada so it’s very widespread. It knocks Garmin and TomTom out of the park! It’s interactive so if there are delays ahead it will re route you. You can enter if there’s heavy traffic,accidents, stuff on the road, bad weather – police! It’s got me out of many a potential ticket! I truly can’t recommend it highly enough. Obviously people had plugged in heavy traffic heading out of NC so it routed me across country on backroads on the way back which was fabulous! I did get stuck on I95 out of N.C. back to Virginia but then got off and hit smaller roads across to West Virginia and I81 which saved us a lot of time. It still took us 20 hours to get home though.

I’d offered rides to several of my sons friends and the majority had evacuation plans already – I’d have brought them home with me otherwise! There was one idiot planning on staying and she was ‘fine’ because she had vodka and cigarettes. One should always have priorities I guess..

I got there in 13 hours and we were back on the road within half an hour. I gave one of my Jerry cans away and the food and water and off we took.

The whole journey was 33 hours and 1,600 miles long. I was a dead duck Wednesday afternoon when we got back!

Yesterday we had Primaries here in NY and I was inspecting at the local elections all day. The polls closed at 9pm but there’s a lot of work afterwards so it was ten pm before I got home and then I had to be up again at 4am to be in Rochester for 6:30am for an MRI! That didn’t go too well so I’ll make that a separate post!

It’s good to be home though!

Published by the britchy one

A PROUD American Citizen who was born and bred in England and now resides in the US. I’m married to an American who really didn’t have a clue what he was letting himself in for - poor sod! I’m a cranky bitch who loves cats and books and hates chocolate, politics and Dave’s. Oh and mosquitos. I hate those blood sucking parasites but since I’ve already mentioned politics I’m repeating myself! I’m a short, skinny redhead, 3 kids, 2 dogs, not enough cats and a mouth with a death wish. Blood group - certifiable.

40 thoughts on “The Week That Was!”

  3. So glad you and your son made it home safely! Sounds like it was quite a long day. That meme about road trip snacks reminds me of a story my mom tells. When she was around seven years, she plucked a $50 out of her mom’s wallet and took her wagon to the local convenient store, where she literally filled up her little red wagon with $50 worth of candy (in the early 60s, that was a lot!), and then later was forced to return it all and apologize. So, moral of the story: use your own money on road trip snacks haha!

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  4. Blooming ‘eck I am so impressed you managed 30 hours driving! We’re planning a 9 hr drive at the end of the moth, and I thought that was way too far! lol

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  9. Glad you are safe. I was wondering if the traffic was going to be insane. I am rarely on I-95 so I wouldn’t be able to offer any advice.

    My area is just now getting outer band rains. We lost power this morning due to an Oak taking out a power pole. No storm. No wind. Just an errant tree. The rest of my county still has power. 😑😐🤨🙄😖

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      1. Thanks, love. Hopefully nothing but rain. We are across the street from a river but, up on a hill with really good drainage. The houses across the street with backyards rolling down to the water? They are in a federal flood plain. They can’t rebuild if damage is too great. And, some of those houses date back to the early 1800s. Curiously, the houses are still there…from the 1800s…it’s just that the feds said “you can’t rebuild”. Flood plain dox date back to only the ’50s. SMDH.

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      3. Possibility. Funky regulations, tho. Some houses have been remodeled so that’s not an issue. I guess it’s just outright rebuild/new build that’s prohibited. There are various tracts of land that are riverfront that have never been developed and, now, can’t be.

        Gotta balance us with the environment. I get it.

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  14. Now…by the power invested in me as your NHS blogger pal – I order you to sleep for an entire week….and give them shoulders a good rest!!! Yer hear!
    Britchy…you are an amazing person…but after all that, promise us you will rest up!!!

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  15. I’m glad everyone is safe. You’ve had a crazy week. Sounds like my life, minus the 1600 miles of driving, I can’t sit upright long enough to do that anymore.
    MRI? I hope you got good news.
    You DO need to rest. And eat plenty of sweets.😜

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  17. You are superwoman! How do you do it? Drive 33 hours, observe the election, then get up for an MRI at 4:00 a.m.! Plus blogging in there somewhere. There should be some kind of award. You are a great mom.

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