My time with Irma

My time with Hurricane Irma

Its been a long couple weeks for everyone here in Orlando, friends have only recently as yesterday gotten power back and still have issues from the storm.  I have had friends lose everything due to flooding, countless yards to clean up and lots of just getting back to normal here.  

I was one of the lucky ones even though I went to Clarksville to visit family during Irma I had no damage to my house and from what I can tell only lost power for a couple hours during the storm.  The trick to telling is putting an ice cube in a bowl to see how much it melts when you get back.  I still threw everything away minus a few condiments.  Mustard and ketchup will keep fine after getting a little warm.  It was kinda relaxing to just throw a bunch of stuff away and start over on my food.  I feel cluttered and almost annoyed when I have so much food that I think it will be wasted.

Clarksville/Nashville was a fun time, I got to see my sister and her family which was nice.  I also was lucky enough to have a friend up there that I used to play hockey with.  He works for the Nashville predators practice rink so that was cool to check that out.  The lightning were there and I got to see some of their training camp before grabbing some beers with my friend.  

The craziest part of the trip was the first day when I got to the house.  I was standing outside with my brother in law watching the kids play and talking when we saw a guy on a bike come down the road, lose control and start sliding coming into the turn.  He laid the bike down and slammed into the large cement mailbox at the end of the driveway sending the bike flying and himself into the yard.  Luckily for him both of us were outside at the time and I always bring my kit on long road trips.  He was lucky to be alive and only suffered from what we could see immediately a badly broken leg.  There was a good 6 inches of bone sticking out of his shin.  

 The moral of that story is don't drink and drive, especially if you're on a motorcycle!  He was a soldier and an NCO, his health and probably career just went down the drain.  NOT WORTH IT, CALL AN UBER!!





Thankfully the drive back went smoothly though, it only took 11 total hours with stops for gas and a little dog walk for Arya.  The drive there took about 16 hours, which is way outside of my happy zone for a road trip.  I did get to see the mountains coming into Tennessee which was nice but would have been nicer if I wasn't so tired and ready to be there.  All in all it was a success though, I really like the city of Nashville and it was nice to visit family.