Monday, August 29, 2011

Hurricane, Part 2

We were in the Buffalo area Saturday. It was gorgeous. We spent most of the day at the Genesee Country Village and Museum (formerly known as Mumford), which is a place where they built an entire village with historic houses that they moved there. That was equally gorgeous. (It's like a miniature Williamsburg, but focusing more on pioneer, antebellum, and turn of the century periods. The last time I was there was around 1982, in the 6th grade.)

After dinner in Corning, New York (which took entirely too long, BTW), we started our race with Hurricane Irene. We hoped that the real nightmare weather would be in the middle of the night. Well, we were wrong. Driving in a hurricane is an interesting experience. Waves of rain passed our truck at around 50 mph. Rain hit like--bucket, pause, bucket, pause, bucket, pause. Trees, whipping hard, started coming apart. Luckily, no big pieces hit us. We did hit a few wading pools of water, but our truck is pretty big and heavy. Just after midnight, we made it home.

Of course, our neighborhood was the first that we noticed was without power. After at least 20 hours, we finally got it back on. Folks have it much worse than us, so we can't really complain. Despite a long, long day, which including a carburetor repair on our generator, we came through pretty well.

Hurricanes in Pennsylvania...and earthquakes. Interesting times.

10 comments:

Jackie Jordan said...

I hope that you guys and gals prepared well for the storm. The best bet for storm victims is to find sound shelter and hunker down. My first storm was Betsy , in 1965, and it never gets easier. Best wishes to you and your family. Stay safe...

the walking man said...

Hurricane...that was no hurricane, that was just a small blow coming in off the ocean. So How did you like the village thing, you should come see Greenfield Village and The Henry Ford museum.

Aine said...

I still maintain that the worst damage we sustained from hurricane Irene is that the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL WAS CANCELLED!!!

How could they??!....
;)

Lee said...

I remember traveling across country by car one summer of my childhood. We had just started out from CA. (final destination PA.) Just outside of Vegas we encountered a flash flood and stayed ahead of it by probably minutes. Cars and earth behind us were ruined. Your girls will probably remember this also - and a the first day of school cancelled - nice !!!

Glad you are safe- from Lee in earthquake country. ;)

Charles Gramlich said...

Glad you came through OK. Scary storms for sure.

Cat said...

Woah...Internet and real world just collided. You were in my (former) neck of the woods. Used to go to Genesee Valley as a kid. Awesome place. Glad you made it back in one piece.

Anonymous said...

Jackie, pretty wild things, aren't they? They take no prisoners.

Walking Man, the village was amazing! Is Greenfield something similar?

Lee, that sounds really scary. You probably felt the world coming apart around you. Much respect for dealing with all of the earthquakes you do! It's a very strange feeling to think that the earth under your feet is a threat. Wings anyone?

Charles, the Outer Banks really got pounded. Even Ocracoke Island was breached.

Cat, now that you mention it, I think you told me that before! Worlds colliding indeed! Very cool. That area has such a unique beauty to it. I do miss living there sometimes. I hope you were okay where you are in the storm.

the walking man said...

Greenfield Village is a museum type project started by Henry ford and Thomas Edison where they moved plank by plank brick by brick historic places to Dearborn MI. Everything from historic houses to candle and metal and glass blowing shops all original and in Detail. The Henry Ford is a historical museum that houses things like the Spirit of St. Louis, the chair Lincoln was sitting in at Fords theater, a presidential limo of the JFK era. It preserves some of the things that some would comsider arcane or not worthy of. Yeah they are both worth a look see and at the same time you can now tour the Ford Rouge plant and see raw come in and built come out. It is still after almost 100 years one of the largest manufacturing complexes in the world.

SzélsőFa said...

that ride sounded like a tough situation, and i'm glad nothing really bad happened to your family.

Anonymous said...

Walkling Man, that sounds very similar, just bigger and better. Very cool!

Szelsofa, yes, it was one of those situations which could have ended worse.