I'm planning to visit a friend who lives in the Catskills in New York on this road trip. It's a little tricky since she has to do some business elsewhere and doesn't know yet when she's going to be at home exactly. But that's what a road trip is about: keeping your options open and being able to change plans quickly and easily. If she isn't there, I'll keep going to Quebec (city), hang out there for a few days and then catch my friend on the way back.
All this was fine until I looked at the predicted path of Hurricane Irene. I don't usually worry much about hurricanes. After all, Charlotte, NC is several hundred miles from the ocean. The fall-out of hurricanes is usually torrential rain for a couple of days, but that's all. However, with my current travel plans, I'd be following that torrential rain all the way to the Catskills and on to Quebec. Road trip or not, driving 1300 miles in the pouring rain is not my idea of a vacation. Of course the predictions aren't always accurate, especially at this stage of the hurricane, but methinks it's time to have an alternative destination ready. Especially for next week.
The other problem with this hurricane is that, if it slams into the NC coast, it may cause 60-75 mile/hr winds here in Charlotte. I live on the 4th floor and I have big windows. I'm afraid at least one of those windows may not survive that sort of winds. It would be a big mess if that happened, but it would be worse when I'm hundreds of miles away.
Yesterday I experienced my first earthquake here. The whole building rattled and shook and, had it lasted longer, my TV would have crashed to the floor. Now I have to worry about a hurricane.
It seems like we live in interesting times.
Follow up on Monday August 29th: Fortunately, the hurricane was not an issue in Charlotte. And its path was not such that much rain is on my way. I may see some flooding in the Catskills, but we'll see.
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