Our drive from Cary, North Carolina to St. Augustine a couple of days ago was interesting. We left beautiful foliage in Cary and stopped in Lumberton for breakfast at a Waffle House. Aloma asked our waitress about her hair which started a conversation with our waitress, another waitress and a man at the next table. After the hair discussion ran dry, the topic of the floods after hurricane Matthew came up. The Waffle House was flooded, as was most of the town, and the employees recently put in a full day cleaning up so they could re-open. They pointed out the road in from of the Waffle House was flooded. One car didn’t realize it and tried to drive through the water and got stuck. One person got out but another didn’t and her body was found days later. As we got back on I-95, we noticed the insides of most homes were being stripped and had piles of rubbish in their front yards.
As we drove south, crews were cutting trees along the roadside. The wind from Matthew had uprooted trees on the west side of I-95 from Lumberton all through most of North Carolina and South Carolina. Many of the trees were huge, mostly pine trees. We remember seeing tree damage in the past, but due to ice rather than high winds.
As we talked about the fallen trees, we noticed the haze, maybe some fog but mostly smoke, and we could smell it. The smoke lasted all the way through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and into St. Augustine. Fire from the North Carolina and South Carolina mountains, Alabama and Georgia drifted with the wind to cover the entire southeast coast. Amazing!
While our car trip had some unusual events, we arrived safely in St. Augustine for a wonderful shrimp dinner at O’Steens. I told Aloma the shrimp were the best ever, but she said I say that every year.
Seasoned Man
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