Deltaville - We survived the storm!

 

You should have seen this view at 9:00 pm at night!

On Sunday afternoon, we became aware of a developing storm that was due to hit North Carolina.We followed the predictions and thought that it was going to pass by mid-day and after that it would be clear for us to travel south. Boy, were we wrong! At the time it sounded like a good idea. 

The snowfall was very heavy

We had intended to leave Monday morning at 6:00 am but with the storm coming from the west, we thought it would be better to leave around noon from New York so we would hit North Carolina at the end of the storm - when they had time to clear the roads. Ha! Our mistake was thinking that North Carolina would tackle the show clearing like we would do in the northeast. It's not so much a matter of expertise (although that does play into the equation some, if you don't do it frequently, you can't be as good) but rather available equipment. Such snowfalls happen so frequently in the northeast that they must have the equipment to remove it, not so farther south. 

There's some beauty in a snowfall too - but only when you not trapped in a car on I 95 for the night

So with the mentality of northeast snowfalls and the expectation of a cleared road after a couple of hours, we headed south around noon. We did not figure in the other part of the equation, the familiarity of North Carolina drivers with driving in snow. Again, if you rarely do it, you can't be as practiced as someone that drives in snow every week. It's a matter of practice, if you do it a lot, then you're better at it after you've tried a few things that didn't work. 

We had a nice cottage to retreat to, courtesy of Waterway Guide

Our trip south started out easy enough with no snow until south of the New Jersey Turnpike. Then we noticed the roads were not cleared as we were accustomed to and we started seeing cars scattered to and fro to either side of the road. The roads never seemed to be cleared to asphalt, there was always a sheen of snow and ice left behind. Added to that was the occasional tree that blocked part of the road that was ready to surprise you rounding a turn. Or, the car that was trying to get into their driveway but didn't have the traction - but was still blocking one lane of traffic - surprise, surprise as you rounded a turn. 

Somehow we managed to avoid the disasters and made it through several places with overhanging trees that formed a tunnel to drive through in the Arctic-like landscape. It was surreal. We eventually made it to Deltaville at 9:45 pm, needless to say, we slept well that night. Unfortunately, many on I 95 did not after they closed a portion of it nearby for almost 24 hours!

Our saga did not end there. We had a car reserved with Enterprise for pickup at 8:00 am on Tuesday morning but when we arrived to claim the car, we found that they had no cars to rent! It seems that no one returned cars as scheduled due to the storm. So now we were stranded without transportation to Florida and warm weather. 

We made calls to Hertz and found a rental in Newport News, Virginia - a hike from here but what to do? We needed a car. I called to be sure they actually had a car - they did - and we headed out. About halfway there, I received a call that the office had just been closed due to a COVID case! The office was closed = no cars can be rented! Now we're back to square one. We then called all nearby Hertz rental agencies and found a minivan available at the Hampton, Virginia office. We immediately said we would take it and continued onward but farther south than we had originally intended. 

Arriving in Hampton, we finally secured a rental car for our trip to Titusville. We are now in Deltaville and looking forward to a good night's sleep before setting out on Wednesday at 7:00 am for a nine-hour trip to Jacksonville. Our boat, Fleetwing, is due to be hauled out on Thursday at 1:00 pm to replace a seacock and if we miss the appointment, we would have to wait until 1/14 - much too long.

All this is part of the adventure I suppose but we hope for much less "adventure" on the rest of our cruise to Key West.