Thursday, October 11, 2018

Hurricanes...

It seems that we are finally at the end of Hurricane Michael, the Virginia edition.  When they suddenly started talking about this tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico becoming a hurricane and aiming for the Florida panhandle, we glanced at the news, but were otherwise detached from it.  I mean, this is Central Virginia.  Storms come here by way of Virginia Beach and Hampton Roads.  Then the storm suddenly because a Cat 4/5, and they were saying that it was going to hit us as a tropical storm.  Um, no.  Has anyone looked at the map?  Hurricane/Tropical Storms/Big Whirling Messes hit us from the Atlantic.  Then the weather people were all, "No really, pay attention!  Big wind!  Rain!  Hello?"  They weren't wrong.  Fortunately, we have not lost power (though it flickered a bunch of times) and all of our trees have so far opted to remain in the original (upright and rooted) positions.

It's not like Central Virginia doesn't do hurricanes.  We just like to leave the bulk of the heavy lifting in that department to the folks further east on 64 (sorry guys!  still love you!  seek shelter, m-kay?)  There was Isabel, which I did not get to experience due to a spectacularly timed trip to St Louis for our AmStaff National Specialty (which included a fair bit of time in the hotel room staring at the tv watching the local news spend about 2 minutes total discussing how Virginia was getting straight up hammered by Isabel--what a shame, and now for sports!).

And there was Hurricane Charley, which, my google-fu says occurred in 1986 (which seems about right--I would have been 11 years old).  My dad had taken a week off, and we were going to Chincoteague.  This was going to be my dream vacation, mainly because it involved a beach, ponies, and books that I had been obsessed with (Misty of Chincoteaque, of course!).  When they forecast the hurricane, my dad, an avid boater, licensed commercial captain, Coastie, and a generally fearless person, was not going to be deterred.  I seem to remember my mom not being nearly as excited about going to visit a coastal town during a hurricane, but we were assured that it wasn't going to be a big deal, and we were going.  We loaded into the White Whale, a 1980-something Mercury Grand Marquis with a massive V8 engine, power everything, and maroon pleather seats (this served as our family car--most of my early road trip memories involved the White Whale).  I remember the road and bridge leading INTO Chincoteague being oddly empty, but the road leading out...well....less so.  The bridge had a large flagpole, and on it flew two red flags with blacks squares on them.  Dad cheerfully informed me that 2 of those flags meant "hurricane".  I remember looking at those flags as we drove past.  Cool!

When we got to Chincoteague, it was a ghost town.  All of the tourists had cleared out.  Interestingly, though, none of the locals were gone.  This was heartening--they had probably seen a thing or two and they weren't too concerned.  We got dinner in a local restaurant.  We were the ONLY diners, which meant that the service was great!  We checked into our hotel, and they gave us a second floor room and advised us of the highest point in the parking lot that almost never floods, and we parked the White Whale, wished it luck, and went in for the night.  No one was too concerned for the car though--it was a beast, and would take more than a measly little hurricane to destroy it.

I don't remember much of the hurricane itself, other than it being very windy and rainy, but I do remember seeing a Coast Guard Cutter cruising the very flooded creek from our second floor balcony (the water had flooded to the level of first floor of the building and the power was out).  Remember, USCG Cutters are not small (65 ft or greater), and, from our balcony, we were at about the same level as the guys on the deck, which felt a little odd as it cruised past our hotel room, shining its lights into the windows.  I'm pretty sure Dad thought it was the coolest thing ever.  It was, in all honestly, pretty damned cool.

The next day, the storm was gone.  The sun came out.  We had all of the tourist stops to ourselves, including going to the Pony Farm and getting to see a still alive but very decrepit Stormy of Chincoteague do one of her many shows in which she drank a Coke from a can largely by herself (she needed a human to open the can).  And we got to see Misty!  Kinda.  Misty was dead, and had been for a fair bit of time, but nonetheless, we got to see her.  See, they stuffed Misty.  As in taxidermy.  I'm really not a fan of taxidermy.  I think it's creepy as hell.  But, if you are going to stuff your beloved pet (or other random critter), at least attempt to do it some justice.  Make it look life-like...or at least, make it vaguely resemble the animal that it originally was.  Don't...don't do this:





This makes me wonder if the taxidermist had ever even seen a horse in person.  Then they put her on display in a single wide trailer/museum with semi-functioning air conditioning (at least, I remember it was only semi-functioning that day).  This sticks out in my mind because my dad was making Musty of Chincoteague cracks for the remainder of the trip.  Actually, he still makes Musty cracks any time Chincoteague comes up in conversation.  It made an impression on all of us.

Anyhow, once Stormy passed on (oddly enough, not of laminitis, despite her multiple Coke-per-day habit), they couldn't resist having her stuffed too.  At least they went with a different taxidermist (at least, it looks like they did?  Still horrifying, but in new and different ways!).


Ok, I have really wandered off from the topic of hurricanes, but if you are curious, our power is still on (a few more flickers), the wind is still really blowing, and, to our knowledge, all of the trees on our property are still standing.  I'm going to bed, y'all.  

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