Tales of the Traveling Tote, Fall Frolics and Hurricane Headaches

the Painted Apron

5 years ago

Welcome to the December edition of Tales of the Traveling Tote!

This MacKenzie-Childs loving tribe

shares the adventures we’ve had with our Courtly Check totes

every 3 months and we celebrate with a giveaway!

It is hard to imagine a mere 3 months ago,

Sept 1 2020,

Miss Coquille, Hello Gorgeous and I were getting ready

to head to the beach house for a weekend

of family fun for Labor Day

It has become an annual tradition to gather on the coast with my SIL

her husband, children and grands

to enjoy a last weekend of summer fun,

celebrate my BIL’s birthday

and kick off college football season…

We felt like we could gather safely as all our activities would be outside,

enjoying the pool deck, grilling, eating

and watching the delayed Kentucky Derby under the house

Even though football season was pushed back a few weeks,

we had great fun swimming and boating,

And watching the “most exciting 2 minutes of sports”

Everyone filled out a betting sheet choosing Win, Place and Show

hoping to win a prize bag of goodies

It is surreal to think that after such a perfect weather weekend,

that only a week later

our little slice of paradise was in the path of Hurricane Sally~

the piers and boat houses you see below will be totally wiped out

We watched the water rise through photos taken by a friend and neighbor,

praying that damage would be minimal…

but when the dock was already submerged 12 hours

before the storm was due to make landfall,

we felt helpless…

Our house was spared, but pier was destroyed

and our boats were slung down the island on neighboring property

I felt so lucky to have another house to live in,

and not have to deal with the destruction, power and water outages,

and devastation, first hand,

but it was still an overwhelming blow to our family

and the place we love so much…

Our satsuma orange tree is a good example of the Gulf Coast attitude,

“Keep Strong and Fight On!”

Poor thing, stripped of it’s leaves, but still hanging on to the fruit …

Dealing with storm damage long distance is challenging,

but my son and son-in-law are forever my heros,

they secured tarps on our roof and cleared our property of debris,

plus helped many of our friends and neighbors

In the city, such an opposite atmosphere prevailed…

we enjoyed a truly spectacular Fall…

mild temperatures and stunning color

I lunched with friends safely on the patio

and we had several gatherings to watch football on the outdoor TV,

We had fires and pizzas as the weather turned cooler

We love to spend Thanksgiving at the beach house,

and decided to keep up the tradition this year,

although I was apprehensive…

after Hurricane Sally, followed by Zeta, and Eta,

I was nervous about what to expect…

we’d recently had electrical damage caused by the power line to the pier

but thankfully it was an easy fix with a few new breakers…

Monday, Thanksgiving week:

Me to HHjr: “I noticed the water is way down in the pool, I need to call the pool service and see what’s going on…”

Pool Service: “The water seems to off at your house, we’ve been unable to add water, so the service man turned off the skimmers so there wouldn’t be any damage”

Me to HHjr: “Do you think the island turned off the water right before hurricane Eta since we weren’t there?”

HHjr: “Possibly…I can just turn it back on at the meter when we get there…”

When we got there, and HHjr tried to turn on the meter, he discovered a big crack in the line and water shooting out as soon as he turned it on. It turns out the the water company turned it off because they noticed excessive usage at our address.

Me: “I’ll call the plumber” Okay so, it was Wednesday afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving, everything was closed and the plumber said he couldn’t come until Friday. HHjr said, “I’m going to go to the hardware store and get some parts and try to fix it…”

By the time he got back it was dark, he was exhausted, and said we’d have to wait until morning. We had a case of bottled water, so we proceeded to fix a simple dinner, eat on paper plates, stack dirty dishes, and brush our teeth with cups of water…

The next morning, miracle of miracles,

he did successfully install a new piece of pipe

and by 10:30 am we had water, glorious water!

We were VERY THANKFUL!!

Thanksgiving Day was stolen from summer,

sunny and high 70s,

I spent hours happily painting and enjoying every moment

and so THANKFUL for my son

who always handles everything with a “can do” attitude

Our pier was a little hard to look at, but our bird friends were making the best of it

DD and her family arrived late in the afternoon

after lunching with NG’s family in the city,

and we proceeded to have a very non traditional Thanksgiving!

By Friday, we were ready to relax, enjoy the mild weather and de-stress…

But, as luck would have it,

when HHjr left to go to the grocery store,

he discovered a nail in the tire of my car

Long story short, so much was closed for the holiday and we couldn’t find anyone to fix the tire or sell us a new one, so HHjr ended up driving back to the city on Sunday, 270 miles on the spare, going no more than 50 mph on the back roads, and insisting I ride back with DD…

oh and it was POURING rain…I was a nervous wreck…

But we all made it safely,

and had a wonderful time despite the challenges but…

We all need a vacation to recover from our “vacation!“

Now it’s on to December, Happy Holidays

and celebrating the end of hurricane season!