Back home - Day 557 (Yr 2, Day 176)

Asheville, NC

I confess I've been a little lazy in getting to write this post.

Tuesday was another busy work day, although not as bad as Monday.  I was able to take a little break at noon and decided to go swimming and in the hot tub again.  One of my clients wants me to give a training session to his reps, so I had to be prepared by 5:00.  Tuesday evening, we met with 2 of Mitch's colleagues (Mike and Kandi), who are also RV full-timers working with Southern Cross and also located in Asheville (a different campground) who were asked to go to Durham for the week as well.  Very lovely couple!  I hope we get to spend more time with them.

On Wednesday, I arranged for a late check-out (1:00 instead of noon) because I had another training session to do.  After that, I moved the party down to the lobby/cafe area until Mitch returned at 2:00.  It was pouring rain and despite his expensive rain suit, he was soaked to the skin and had to change before we could hit the road back to Asheville.  We left the hotel at 2:30 and finally arrived home around 9:00 pm.  The traffic wasn't too bad, but there were some severe storms coming in from the midwest, so we had quite a few bands of torrential downpours to drive through.  I did the first 3.5 hours of driving because I can't drive at night (night vision-where all I see is a blur of lights and I can't judge where those lights are).  Mitch did the last hour.  With all the flood warnings we were hearing about, we called the campground first to determine if we were under an evacuation warning again.  We were told that so far there had only been regular rain (the worst of the storms were expected to hit on Thursday), so everything was ok.  So now knowing we didn't have to rush back to prep to move, we allowed ourselves to stop off the highway for a real dinner out (we went to Chili's).

It's always a great relief to return home after being away for a few days (or longer) and discover that everything is exactly the way we left it (it was the same in our sticks & bricks house as well).  We brought everything inside and just left it there, to unpack the next day (another first for me!  I can never stand clutter and need to have everything in order at all times, but I guess I was just too tired to deal with it right then).  We watched some "tv," had some wine and then went to bed.

The rain started around 5:30 am and lasted pretty much until about 5pm; with several bands of very intense rain and thunderstorms.  Once again, we watched the river level come within inches of the top of the bank, and were on alert to close up and move to the other side.  We thought we were in the clear, but heard about more rain & flash flooding conditions for Friday morning.  There was some rain but not as intense, and it ended around 10am (when the sun and some blue sky peeked through for a few minutes).  Again, we thanked G-d for keeping us safe and for not having to move.

I should also mention that the country right now is seeing extremely unusual weather patterns.  Whereas it's supposed to be in the 30s-40s this time of year, we are having a 72 degree Christmas day.  I understand it hit 74 in NYC yesterday, and it's pretty much in the 60s and 70s all along the east coast.  Not that I'm complaining at all!!!  If only it were this warm and sunny though.

So yesterday (Thursday) and today (Friday) were like vacation days for me as my clients are all taking the time off.  I spent the morning doing household stuff and then convinced Mitch to join me and spend the rest of the day just vegging and watching movies.  Today, in between just playing around on the internet, I'm also doing some household stuff and preparing for Shabbat.  At the moment, Mitch is visiting one of our campground neighbors who is having some computer problems, so he's doing some tech support.  It would be awesome if he could make that his full time work, but I don't think there's enough need to pay the bills (it's good pocket change though, if he even charges.  Sometimes it's nice to just make friends and if they offer something, that's sweet).