Day 4
We didn’t get much sleep last night. I worked until well after nine, so we didn’t feel we had time to watch a movie. We wanted to get lots of sleep and feel really rested, so we read for awhile and turned out the lights. The wind had already been whipping around, and we started seeing lightning, but sitting in the living room everything seemed pretty quiet.
It wasn’t until we got into the bedroom that we realized the storm was just hitting us at midnight. We lasted in bed about a half hour, lying quietly in the dark, but we finally couldn’t stand it any longer. The storm came from the northwest, and our bedroom is on the furthest northwest corner of the trailer, so we were getting the full brunt of it.
The trailer was rocking, branches from a nearby tree were scraping and squeaking on the roof and windows, we heard clunks, thumps, bangs, squeaks, and rattling, and it sounded as though the roof was lifting and banging. The squeaks and groans sounded for all the world like someone big was in the room with us, creeping heavily around.
We lasted about forty-five minutes and realized we were so spooked that we weren’t going to sleep, so we got our headlamps on and sat in the living room watching for the news/weather report. The weather was severe enough that a local station was holding an all night broadcast.
The living room was a big improvement as we couldn’t hear every creak and groan of the trailer. Though the power flickered and went out for a few moments, we didn’t lose it totally, and by 1:45 a.m. the worst of the storm had passed. We went to sleep by 2 a.m. listening to the rain.
Today is really sleepy, as we still hadn’t gotten caught up from the lack of sleep the last fews weeks. Nolan came home with Betty about 9:30, and by 10:45 he had the hot water heater hooked up.
Betty worked all night at her job, so she’s extremely tired – she can barely talk. It didn’t look like she was up for cleaning, so I asked them to buy cleaning supplies on one of their many runs to the local store; we wanted to clean the bathroom and the bedroom.
We’ve been catching up on our work between talking and cleaning. Chelsea is still typing up our notes, and I’m working on getting our equipment lists straightened out. There are a number of things we need, and I did a lot of research in Gueydan about what would work for us, so I’m compiling it all into a very organized master spreadsheet.
The weather this morning was humid and warm, but quite nice. It’s now disintegrating into the storms that are coming in a few hours. Right now there’s a tornado watch, and we are told to be leaving mobile homes just in case. We are in a trailer, with nowhere to go, so we’ll stick it out and hope for the best. It’s tracking to the northeast of us, so I don’t think we’re really in any danger.
We have really high hopes that these storms will blow completely through by Friday night. We are very hopeful about getting back on the road by Saturday morning. If we can leave on Saturday we will be in Port Arthur, Texas by Tuesday night, if all goes as planned. We’ll spend a night each at the Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge, Oak Grove, Cameron or Holly Beach, and then Port Arthur.
Day 5
Last night’s storm was another real humdinger. We didn’t have the wind, but wow, did we have rain! For two and half solid hours we had non-stop thunder and lightning, right overhead, with torrential rains. The rain poured in the bathroom window through a leak in the caulking, as though someone had a hose right outside, hooked over the windowsill. The storm was over by 10:30, so we were able to sleep decently.
After a full night’s sleep despite the rain, Betty and Nolan are kicking into gear this morning. Betty came to get the cleaning supplies from our bathroom (ours looks great, except for the floor and window sills) and she’s tackling the other bathroom. Nolan is hooking up the 12 gallon hot water heater to 220 volt – it was on 110 volt yesterday and it only produced a very lukewarm to cool temperature – Chelsea and I both ended up taking cold showers…sigh…
Betty called out to Nolan “Y’all got a dustpan around here?” Nolan wandered through the living room muttering under his breath and came out of the back room holding a dustpan. “Ah got one,” he muttered, wandering back through the living room. “Only trouble is, Ah never did figger out how ta use the thing…” We laughed at his dry sense of humor.
The mosquitoes are out in full force today. Chelsea and I have settled into two armchairs in the living room, with our laptops, and it’s a virtual killing field over here. Just as I smacked yet another one, we heard Betty out on the porch telling Nolan, “I told Sheila I was moving to Pecan Island, and she said, ‘y’all better bring a lot of Off’.” From other comments we’ve heard, Pecan Island is infamous for its legions of mosquitoes.
The cold usually kills them, or at least slows them down, so we’re pleased that a big cold front is coming through tonight after the storm. Tomorrow’s high will be only 60 degrees, dropping to 40 degrees overnight. It’ll be hard to get going Sunday morning with that kind of cold, but we won’t have mosquitoes!
We’ve spent the rest of the day working on blogs and typing up paperwork. We’ve gotten a last round of laundry in the dryer, and I’m pitching in to help with some cleaning here. We’ll pack up tonight and get our warmer cycling clothes out of the trailers, as we hope to be out of here early tomorrow. It’s hard to overestimate how much we want to be back on the road.
We have one last round of really big storms tonight, then we’ll be clear for about a week. Yippee!
Day 6
We didn’t get our wish to leave Pecan Island. After watching the weather really carefully, we knew that the storms would be through by midnight, and though it would be cold, the winds would shift overnight to northeast. We were very unpleasantly surprised. The winds hit the trailer from the northwest at about 2 a.m. and by 2:30 we were wide-awake.
The winds didn’t abate until about 4:30 and by that time the cold front had hit. Our room temperature dropped eighteen degrees from 2:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. We didn’t have our winter pjs on, and we didn’t have our sleeping bags, so we nearly froze to death.
We were up by 8 a.m., but we were so exhausted that we could hardly move. We had about five hours of interrupted sleep at the most. Added to that was the fact that the winds during the day were bitterly cold and gusting to easily 30-35 mph. It was obvious we weren’t going anywhere.
We just passed the day as restfully as we could. I read and Chelsea played sudoku on the laptop. Nolan was really pleased that we stayed, as he loves talking to us, and I think we provide a lot of entertainment value to him. We were glad he didn’t mind having us stay! He took off to drink beer with a friend, so we had the place to ourselves for the evening. We are so hoping for a restful night and decent winds tomorrow!
Though we didn’t see much of Nolan after the second day we arrived, we really appreciated how kind he was to take in two strangers and give us shelter from the storms. We feel that we have gotten to know a real Pecan Island “institution”. It’s really heartwarming to know that people like Nolan are around.
Signing off from Pecan Island…