Through the Eye of the Hurricane

First thing to do today is to go back to the picture I posted of a furry creature in a box.  I asked if anyone could see what I saw. Our friends from Maxxtrails and Chillin with Patsey took good guesses but Deb and Riley at On a long and lonesome highway, saw what I saw.  It was a crate to put a hippo in or a HIPPO CRATE (hypocrite).  My wife says I see things different in life and that may be so.  I just know that after I set up the hippo in the crate, every isle I went down, the little lights would turn on, on the "you are being recorded" cameras.  I guess they were wondering what I would do next.

Todays travels will take us through Mexico Beach FL which is where the Eye of Hurricane Micheal passed through.  We will continue down to Chiefland Florida today.

As we left Panama City the damage to the trees became worse and Tyndall Airforce Base showed some major damage.  I hate when society uses others misfortunes to make news, but it can also be a way of expressing a sincere concern for the people who are suffering through this.  A lot of people only hear about this sort of thing through the large media's and sometimes it becomes a little more real when someone you know has witnessed it with there own eyes.  That is what we did today and believe me what we saw was way more disturbing than pictures can show.  We feel for everyone affected by this Hurricane.

The power of the wind took massive pine trees and snapped them like toothpicks.

Some of the more flexible younger trees just bent over and did not break.  I wonder if it will just continue growing this way, or will it slowly straighten back up.  It has been 2 months since the storm so I'm guessing it will stay.

We stopped for a little break when we got past Mexico Beach and walked down to the edge of the gulf in a non populated area.  Even there we could see that things were out of place, but the ocean is slowly putting everything back.

We stopped further along and it seemed like the wind damage had quit but the water damage was still evident.  It took these 400 lb concrete table tops and lifted them off and set them on the ground without breaking them.

We also learned that this part of the beach was used as a training place for the troops that were being deployed to the D-Day Invasion.  Interesting information.

We decided to stop for the night in Chiefland FL at the Walmart there.  That would leave us an easy drive tomorrow to get to our destination.  And look who we found there??  Ed and Lessie in Roundtuit.  They are heading for Clearwater FL and left a couple days after us but got ahead of us by taking some interstates.  We had a good old reunion before bed.

And a little walk in Walmart reminded us that Christmas is sneaking up on us.

This was our parking spot tonight:  The view is outside instead.