Our home in Saint Petersburg, Florida received a mandatory evacuation order today because of hurricane Irma! Fortunately I am writing this from Auburn, Alabama as seen in the picture of us outside our hotel below because my wife suggested on Tuesday that we would be better leaving Wednesday well before anything was issued or the track of the storm was more probable to hit Florida. We set out yesterday amidst more uncertainty as gas stations were just starting to run out of gas but fortunately I had filled up to full two days earlier and we have a hybrid Toyota RAV4 which gets 30 MPG highway even in traffic. In just 42 more "easy" payments of $909 I will actually own it :)
To escape hurricane Irma, we left Wednesday September 6, 2017 before nearly anyone else was ready to leave in our area. We drove from Pinellas county Florida to Auburn, Alabama yesterday as a halfway stopping point to visit my mom in north Mississippi near Starkville on Friday. The drive according to the GPS would have taken about 6 and a half hours the night before with no traffic. As I packed my studio up and loaded the car, we began our drive at 12:30 pm. We arrived at our hotel at 11 pm our time which technically was 10 pm CST after sitting through 3 and a half hours of traffic even with taking side roads that diverted another hour of the traffic jam.
Today as the mandatory evacuation order came in for where we leave, we now sit over 300 miles away. I am very grateful we took the leap of faith to leave before it was more certain that it would be a good idea to do so. All the gas stations have gas and the stores have plenty of supplies in Auburn. On the GPS, traffic looks about as bad as yesterday so far to drive up here with over 50 miles of interstate being at nearly a dead stop according to Google maps.
When will we be able to return to our home? When will I get to use my studio again? I am not sure when or if I will get to see my home filming studio again! Until then will be releasing videos I already filmed along with making new ones on the road starting with this post!
In the picture my wife took just a few minutes before this (followed by me taking at least 10 minutes to figure out how to crop it in the previewer on my macbook pro), I am in the middle of the glamorous process of trying to get both of my dogs to poop on the little section of grass outside the hotel while encouraging my daughter to find something better to do than look in the dog waste trashcan! She is going down for a nap now and here I am on the computer again!
Thank you for sharing my journey with me and I hope you have a wonderful day today!
Mississippi Meetup?
If you would like me to do a Steem meetup within the next week or two near Columbus, Mississippi, would you please ask in the comments below because if we have a few of us, we can meet up while I am nearby?
Love,
Jerry Banfield
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