Earl's Refugees

And so, we left Hatteras, forced out by Hurricane Earl. As you can see, the line of cars was long, but it moved relatively steadily.

Still, departing the beach early was a pretty depressing event. A 7-day vacation cut in half is not a formula for joy.

And so, the family voted to continue the vacation. Nobody wanted to go home early, so we headed off toward Raleigh, NC. Along the way we stopped for lunch at a local diner, and broke out the laptop. It's amazing what you can do with WiFi. With the help of our handy-dandy search engines, we found a hotel in Raleigh that seemed to be what we wanted -- it had a swimming pool.

We arrived late Wednesday night exhausted and hungry. Fortunately there was a "Caribbean Breeze (?)" restaurant across the parking lot and soon we were all drinking fruity drink (with alcohol to ease the pain for the adults).

The next day we voted with our feet and sat by the pool all day. I have to say that the staff were quite kind to us. Despite clear rule against eating or drinking by the pool they politely looked the other way as we had lunch. We even set up the bags game on a small patch of grass by the parking lot. It wasn't the beach, but it was OK.

That evening we went to see the Durham Bulls play -- a AAA farm team of the Tampa Rays. The Bulls became famous because of the movie with Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon and the stadium was just perfect. It sat about 9,000 I'd guess; with entertainment every half inning on the field -- contests and stunts and the like. We got seats in the 2nd row out in right field and had a blast.


The next day, our last in Raleigh, saw everyone sleep in late. But in the afternoon, we headed off to Frankie's Fun Park where we had a pleasant afternoon playing Putt-Putt golf, racing go carts and, as you can see, playing blaster boats and squirting each other. As Katy says, it seemed to lift everyone's mood a bit.

And so the saga ends, not with a bang but with a whimper. Traditionally, down in Hatteras we end the vacation with breakfast together at Sonny's. Well, there was no Sonny's in Raleigh, but we did find Cortney's which was almost as good. A big breakfast sent everyone scattering for home on a full stomach.

I know one thing though -- the Kunzer/Rosenzweig/Blenner clan will NOT be defeated. Next year we are going back to Hatteras and we double-dog-dare Earl to come back and join us.

A Short Hatteras Vacation

Well, the first three days of the vacation were absolutely stunning. A large fraction of the family got together -- Katy & Paul; Mike & Debbie plus their 4 boys (our grandsons, Aaron, Ryan, Josh & Kyle); Pete & Linda and their grandson CJ; plus for a special appearance, Katy's other brother, John.

On Sunday-Tuesday the weather was simply sublime. Temperatures in the mid-80s and a nice breeze. The waves were rough on Sunday, but we had a couple of days of great swimming weather. As usual, we spent the days doing a whole lot of nothing! Sitting on the beach, swimming, reading, drinking beer and chatting. Evenings were likewise filled with alot of very exhausting stuff like eating and having a glass of wine and swimming in the pool. We go every year to recharge the batteries.

The roof fell in on Wednesday morning. With Earl threatening, Dare County ordered a mandatory evacuation. We had 3 hour to pack up and leave. We found a moment to take the traditional family photo (above) and, as you can see, when we left the weather was still perfect.

All of us were pretty disappointed to leave. And in the end, it probably wasn't necessary -- Earl turned and passed off shore at Force 2. The electricity never stopped and though the roads flooded on Friday, by Saturday they were cleared and reopened. Had we been allowed to stay we could have hunkered down for 24 hours and watched movies. But of course if we had stayed, Earl would have stayed a Force 4 and never turned -- boy that would have been a challenge!

And so, on Wednesday we evacuated. Unwilling to give up the vacation, we headed to Raleigh, where we became Earl Refugees.