Augusta, GA
All advance cooking was successfully completed on Friday (see my last post, almost last paragraph). We packed up and left the campground at 9:30 am and arrived at the synagogue grounds by 10. I will confess that this was an absolutely miserable experience, and we're not sure whether we're going to repeat it again next week for Yom Kippur (probably not). As much as we don't want to break the rules by driving (which is why we chose to take the rig with us), it just was not at all pleasant. Although - disclaimer - the religious services themselves were extremely inspirational and spiritual.
First, we ran the extension cords (we needed 3 100' cords to reach an outlet inside the building). It did not work and we got an error code on our electric box. It was suggested that most likely the cords weren't strong enough and the distance too great to provide any adequate power.
I had a little more last minute cooking to do, and it was already starting to get hot inside (it was in the mid-90's both days with heat indexes near 100) so we ran the generator for a few hours. At first, it would not turn on; the motor would run and the lights would flicker but then go out. It was shortly discovered that we had both a/c units turned on. That is too much juice for the generator to handle during power-up, and it is also too much juice for both a/c's to be running at the same time. Turning off the unit made for a successful power-up, and then we only ran one a/c zone at a time (we have 1 that heats/cools the living area and the other for the bedroom). We had to turn the generator off before leaving for dinner, as it uses a lot of propane and we needed to be frugal. Although we're not supposed to turn it on during Shabbat or the holidays, we made the choice to do so anyway while we were inside, if needed, to keep it cool. Although, again, in order to be frugal, we opened the windows and left the ceiling fans on (they work on dc current). We went to bed with it being about 90 degrees in the bedroom, but by the wee hours it was down to the 70s.
Sunday evening there was a community dinner which was very enjoyable. Monday services started at 9:30 am and ended at 2:00 pm. There was a small lunch so we didn't need to prepare anything (although I had a full menu planned out). It was 93 degrees inside the trailer when we returned. I jumped into a cold shower (due to the need to conserve water and not fill the gray tank, it had to be a quick wetting down). We turned on the a/c in the bedroom, and it cooled down enough to allow us to take a little nap.
Unfortunately, during our nap, the a/c shut down because we ran out of propane in tank #1. Mitch went out to switch it over to the other tank, but it would not start up. He was certain the tank was full so we could not figure out what was wrong. This is when things really started going downhill. By now, it was about 5:00 pm and it was absolutely sweltering. I should also mention that I do not handle heat very well. I'm not sure whether it's heat exhaustion, but it comes upon me very quickly, no matter how much I drink or how many ice cubes I put on my forehead and neck. Mentally, it puts me in a state of near hysteria. There were additional religious services at 7:45 pm, and this is how I was behaving when we went there (actually, I'm sure I had a lot more self control than I'm letting on, although I was on the verge of tears and passing out). It did get a little cooler in the middle of the night when a storm passed through and I actually woke up under the covers.
On Tuesday morning, Mitch went out to look at the propane tank again and, lo and behold, discovered that he never opened the valve! (I don't know why he didn't figure this out the day before. Probably a combination of the heat and my attitude affecting his thinking clearly). But at this point, we weren't sure how long running the generator would last before running out of gas, so we decided to end our observance of the holiday early and return to the campground after services rather than on Wednesday morning (the holiday ends after sundown and we didn't want to have to back in to our spot in the dark, thus the decision to leave in the morning). We just couldn't take another 18 hours of this misery. The High Holidays are supposed to be an auspicious and spiritual time, and these conditions were making it impossible to come anywhere close to that.
Now about Florence, which is a hurricane heading this way. There are a number of different predictions as it's still a few days away and can always change paths, but so far what is known is that it will be a category 4 or 5 by the time it reaches landfall and is being labeled as possibly the worst monster storm EVER on the east coast (which, after Sandy, it's hard to imagine). As of yesterday, the path was supposed to be thru NC and SC and when we returned to the campground (and back to the real world), we found that Augusta had become a haven for thousands of evacuees (the campground it at full capacity right now, as are all the area hotels. They've even brought patients from those states to the local hospitals here, as well as pets to the local shelters).
However, as of today, it looks like there's a 50/50 chance that the storm is going to track south which puts us into a danger zone (we're currently in what they call the "cone of uncertainty"). We're far enough inland so that they predict it could just be a lot of high wind and torrential rain/flooding. Leaving town and heading south or west is not an option for us right now. The backup plan is that I am making a hotel reservation and will cancel it on Friday afternoon if it looks like we'll have the all-clear. By Friday afternoon we'll have a much better view of what will be, as it's expected to hit this area on Saturday. Watch this space for an update.
