Despite Tropical Storm Michael, we get Kyle to a train station and ship him off to Charleston so he can catch his flight to Minnesota.

We caught up on everything Wednesday, the day after we arrived. We did two loads of laundry, I washed the boat while Kyle tidied the interior, I worked on the blog and watched the Michael live thread. The only thing more impressive than how slow Florence was, is how fast this storm has organized and gained strength. The damage to the Florida panhandle looks more like tornado damage than hurricane damage, with so many buildings completely leveled.

Kyle’s flights aren’t canceled yet but they’re starting to cancel train routes down to Charleston. He called the airline looking for information but they didn’t know anything. We don’t want to drive to Charleston in a tropical storm, especially if we get there and the airport is closed. On the other hand, he really can’t miss this wedding so we’ve got to figure out some way to get him to Minnesota.

Oh, one fun occurrence – we were checking out the docks when we heard a thrashing in the water on the other side of the boat. We ran up to figure out what was going on, was something falling off the boat? and I just barely caught a glimpse of something big and black in the water. That’d be a water moccasin, they are prevalent around here. We’ll need to add snake-away to our purchase list, it’s way too easy for a snake to climb up our transoms right now. Yikes. (I have since learned that snake-away is not good for marine life, so we’re looking at alternatives.)

Thursday night, I borrowed a car from the in-laws and drove Kyle nearly two hours to the train station. He booked the midnight train to Charleston so he can make his flight Friday morning. Since Tropical Storm Michael is passing through, we opted to leave plenty early and then stop at a brewery or two to kill time. The trip to Rocky Mount was a bit windy but not bad.

We made it to the first brewery after dodging some branches on our way through town. Within minutes of ordering our beers, the power went out. It was only around 9pm, but we both felt a little trepidation toward my drive home, so I barely touched my beer before dropping Kyle off at the train station. The drive home was very windy and rainy, and while it wasn’t dangerous, I felt much better when it was over. I stayed in touch with Kyle, whose train was delayed several times, but never canceled! He finally boarded around 2am.

While we were away, the wind changed directions. The boat was getting blown against one single post, and it was really hard to keep a fender in place between the boat and the post. I didn’t want to go outside, but I had to suit up and try to add a fender in the dark, windy, rainy night. The temperature must have dropped as well, because for the first time in months, I was cold!

I finally found a good solution, changed into dry clothes, and curled up into bed with a pile of blankets. Just as I started drifting off…SQUEAK SQUEAK. The fender I had placed was squeaking against the hull right by my head. Being warm and dry and comfortable, I chose to ignore it. It’s not like I was going to sleep well anyway.

The following morning I was more zombie than human, but since I still had the car keys it was time to venture into town for groceries. I hadn’t seen a fresh vegetable in over a week, so it was time to visit the one grocery store in town.

The rest of the day passed in a daze. Ken and Kelly invited me over for happy hour that night, we sat outside until the mosquitoes came out, then we went to their boat and entertained their new kitten.

Wow, this was going to be a really boring post, luckily I saved it with that kitten photo, right?