Dear Jan

Dear Jan
Do I really have to have clean clothes EVERY day?

Tim

p.s.  Thank you for your reply to the last post (not THAT "Last Post" that I have to play on trumpet from time to time)

Dear Tim
Sorry again for the delay. 
Getting through all my 'dear jan' letters is quite overwhelming! 
Firstly, it's a woman's instinct to protect and I'm afraid all those situations you list are quite dangerous. Ruth is a loving and caring person as well as wise. Men of a certain age have been known to fall on pavements so of course she would hold your hand. 
Swimming on your own - well that's obvious - SHARKS! 
As for shopping on your own, well that's downright dangerous!!!! 
What a loving wife you have Tim. 
Xxxx 

Hurricane Matthew

Thursday 6^th October

Good morning.

Every day, we have been checking the weather and following the all the updates on Matthew. Everyone here is talking about it and so they should.

Ron and Cecile suggested to us that we went to see Seminole State Park, Georgia. You were spot on, thank you! It is gorgeous.

As we arrived we chatted with a lady (we’ll call her Linda for now. She looked like a Linda!) who had travelled from East Florida.  She told us that all the camp sites were full and this was the first one she found that had space for her two vehicles and her caravan.  We are miles 200 miles from the east coast!!

Apart from Labor weekend, we haven’t had to book any campsites at all. We can just turn up and hook up. This is different. We’re having to take one day at a time. There’s always Walmart, which apparently is also full of RVs.

The wind was up today (the weather that is, - not Tim’s) and was also the affect of Hurricane Matthew even though we were over 600 miles north west of where land fall is expected.

Inside the park office, the Rangers told us that (apart from us having lovely accents) about 2 million people are being evacuated. Some have decided to stay in their homes, and are equipped with generators, food supplies and are boarding up their homes. One Ranger’s father has lived in South Florida for over 50 years and is very used to doing what he needs to do to stay where he safely lives. The authorities take the names of all those that decide to stay and others pack RVs and move. We have even heard that some people have two homes, one in the east and one in the west of Florida. They maintain the one in the west purely for evacuations.

There was one family that decided to stay on Tybee Island, a beautiful place we visited just a short while ago. Most houses there are on stilts and the warnings are clear to evacuate if even a hurricane of category 2 is coming! Matthew is a Category 4 at this moment. The reason the family decided to stay was because they are expecting 129 guests for a wedding tomorrow!

That will be a wedding to remember.

The roads apparently have been very busy today. On the roads, they work a contraflow system on one carriageway. Each side of the road has at least two lanes, and both sides are used to go the same direction. Slip roads going towards the storm are blocked off and all traffic is diverted onto evacuation routes.  It would seem that evacuation routes are all over USA, from what we can see.

I guess they have to do this drill so many times. This one is a big one though and we’re very aware of that. Everyone we’ve spoken to is taking it very seriously.

For those of you that know my family (Ruth’s), you may remember we were caught up in Hurricane Charley in 2004 and we were in the last plane to be allowed to leave Orlando. It was an experience I will never forget.

We’ll keep you updated too, with anything we hear of interest on the ground.

This is Ruth Parfitt signing off, for Harveymoon 2016.

Friday 7^th October

Good morning

Well, apart from it being windy where we’ve been staying, we’ve seen and heard very little of Hurricane Matthew on the ground. The camp sites are filling up though as people ae still finding shelter away from the east coast. We woke this morning to find a lot more people in  Seminole State Park than there were last night.

People are being allowed to camp anywhere they can in the park. Rather that, than be left travelling.

We had an update from Liz and Anna today and were shocked and very saddened by the death toll when we saw the news tonight. Please pray for all the families affected that God will help them in all they need, both physically, practically and emotionally.

This is Ruth Parfitt signing off, for Harveymoon 2016