Hurricane Florence has passed through and all is well…

Now that Hurricane Florence has passed, it left a ton of flooding here in the state of North Carolina. I also realized I had better catch up the blog! We ended up staying in Raleigh at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds instead of moving anywhere else. Why? Well as we watched the hurricane’s projected paths I had ruled out my initial thought of heading near Pinehurst and then eliminated my next plan of going to Charlotte NC. I did consider moving north into Virginia but eventually decided it was best to “hunker down” and simply stay put.

We were able to sneak in a few days of disc golf at a few different courses in the Triangle area in the days before the storm. In NC the towns of Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Durham are known as the the Triangle. Even though the storm was bringing occasional showers ahead of it we were able to squeeze in about three rounds of disc golf. We also used this time to prepare for the possibility of a power outage after the storm passed through this area.

As a result we went to the local grocery stores and stocked up on food and even though we were doing this a few days before the hurricane there was already not a lot of choice in the grocery stores. Water was the most sought after commodity but canned goods and food not needing cooking were also in demand. We bought stuff that we normally need since we knew we could fill our water tank (and we did) and that we had a nearly full tank of diesel to run our generator if needed. We would be in good shape if the power went out for over a week.

The day Florence made landfall it sat and moved very, very slowly as most of you know. As a result the area was getting pounded with rain, more so to our southeast than what we had here. There were places that got FEET of rain whereas we only got inches, about 8-9 in total. We did get some gusty winds up to 40+ MPH but we have had winds stronger than that in the southwestern USA deserts! Wasn’t much to do when the storm was passing through so we gave the RV a thorough inside cleaning including cleaning the front dashboard for the first time ever!

After the storm finally passed we added a few more days here at the fairgrounds since all of the NC state parks are closed until further notice. We plan to go back to Jordan Lake next. We did find one small area in our bedroom closet that showed signs of a water leak. We cleaned it up and after an additional 2+ inches of rain we didn’t see any more signs of water leaking in. I assume it must have been wind driven but I will inspect the end cap and will re-seal it in the near future as that is the only place I can think of that may have allowed rain to enter that part of our RV.

Today the sun is shining and we are very glad to be able to get out and enjoy some sunshine once again…

NOTE: We are now at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds again as we wait for other parks in the area to reopen…