Of course like everyone else, I had been religiously watching the Weather Channel since the onslaught of Frances! Frances made her way up the eastern seaboard flooding our city, worse than it had seen in over 30 years! The flood waters receeded just in time for Ivan.... We watched with baited breath, thinking that once Ivan passed our trip would be in the clear... but OH NO... there was Jeanne. Ivan like Frances had made it's way up the eastern seaboard and again flooded our city. In a more rural part of the mountains 33 homes were destroyed and 18 people lost their lives... we didn't know what happened because the area was unreachable for a day or two due to the flooding.
I had packed the weekend before our trip, knowing that with work and such I just would not have time during the week leading up to our trip. I planned to work up to Friday, to save my vacation days for the acutal vacation! The city (Asheville, NC) was still cleaning up from the flooding that Frances brought to our area, as we watched and waited to see what Ivan brought our way..... Wedensday night into Thursday we were set for it to start trickling in..... it did.... slowly at first but by late Thursday afternoon the winds were really kicking up and the rain was coming down... the rivers once again rising quickly. I was trying to tie up some last minute details, had picked up my mom's van (she let us borrow it for our trip! better than my teeny tiny saturn!) watched the news. The worst was yet to come. It was approaching 11pm, I was actually on the disboards as the power kept dipping in and out trying to go off.... I even posted on this thread I think... see ya at the port hope I can finish my post before the power goes out! Well I had turned off all the lights, walked to our bedroom (DH had gone to bed hours ago!) and laid down, when I heard the silence..... the power had gone out I couldn't hear the fridge... opened my eyes and saw that the clocks were dark.... So I set my cell phone to alarm at 5am so I could get up and get ready for work. The wind kept DH and I awake most of the night. We would periodically get up, and stand in the back yard (not a really bright thing to do considering the vast numbers of trees around us!) and feel the force of the tropical storm force gusts.... at about 2:15 I finally decided I needed to go to sleep! The next morning the alarm woke us up, and we did the best we could to get ready for work in the dark by flash light and candle light. Thankfully we had hot water (gas hot water heater! LOL) and managed to get ourselves ready to go. I had turned on the radio to listen for school closings (I work for a day care center) heard nothing so headed out into the storm to go to work, my 2 boys in tow.
We got to work, and everything was dark! No one was there and there was no power. So I had put a couple of extra things in the van to donate to the infant class (high chair) so we dropped those off and headed off to head back to the house. I stopped at a couple of places a long the way to see what kind of flooding we were having (and it was just as bad as Frances... thankfully not worse like we were expecting!).
I made a run for my mom and I for ice... we had been without power for 12 hrs..... So I found ice, loaded up coolers and walked mom's dogs (she had back surgery, dad is a vol. firefighter was out helping w/ downed trees) for her.
Came home, and busied myself with all the last minute packing that I had set out, and decided while it was still day light to pack the van. It had stopped raining and it was just windy. Van was packed.... now I had to wait.... and wait..... it was totally boring with NO power! The kids and I played a lot, I straightened up the house so that it would be nice for our return LOL
DH came home from work, and sent me to pick up something to eat, and take our stuff from our freezer to their walk in freezer at his job (manager at bojangles). I topped of the cooler, and got us some chicken for dinner.
Saturday morning arrive.... finally!!!! We packed up and left the house by 7:30am for our drive to Florida. The weather for the drive down was beautiful! It couldn't have been better! Someone else mentioned all the utility crews... we saw hundreds of them! We saw our first ones when we crossed the NC/SC border.... and we saw them regularly from there to our exit off of I-95! We arrived in Cocoa Beach about 6pm. We got our hotel room, and took the boys to the beach for a quick visit... it was their first time to the beach and we weren't going to wait! LOL They loved it, and thought the HUGE sandbox was the coolest

We returned to our room and DH walked to get us a bite to eat. We were up bright and early the next morning, ready to go! We got to port about 15 minutes before it opened! Once it was our turn, I dropped DH, DS(3) off with the luggage while DS(1) and I parked the van. Check in line had no one in front of us, so it was quick and simple, and the rest was just having fun waiting for embarkation!
There's my LONG pre-cruise story!