Palm-Sicles - Jan 30th 2014

Its hard to believe that just a few days ago we were beach-combing and Barb collected some great shells.

Part of Barb's shell collection.

Being a boy from the Great White North I can honestly say I never thought that this would happen, but it did!

I got very, very cold here in Florida and Barb will back me up on this.
It all started the day before yesterday as the temperatures dropped and the rains began.

These guys don't seem to mind the cold weather?

We are parked on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico again over by Panama City.

The TV stations started to post ALERTS and even tonight they are still showing warning banners across the bottom of the screen. We were told to prepare as if a Hurricane was coming!

The winds began to howl, the rains quickly turned to ice. The roads turned to skating rinks. That's just a sample of what happened. States all around us went into a "State of Emergency" warning people to stay home and stay off the roads. Schools and businesses closed. Some counties even posted alerts that all of their roads are closed to travel!

It's hard to see here but the ice was about 1/2 inch thick.

The sides were dripping with the rain and then it all froze!
I couldn't get the basement doors to open.

The heated mirrors won't help in this storm!

We were told to plan for power outages and falling trees. Thankfully that didn't happen here but others weren't so lucky. Being parked on the edge of the ocean just made the winds that much colder. The wind chill factor forced the temperatures down dramatically!

In Atlanta they didn't seem to react quick enough and thousands of children had to stay overnight at their schools camped out under their coats on the GYM floors!

Highways began to get plugged and the pileups had begun to happen.

The grille and engine hood were coated with ice and couldn't open either.

What have we gotten ourselves into I wondered?
At first I thought it can't be all that bad after all this is Florida.

Soon my thoughts changed & I lost my sense of humor a short time later to boot.

It doesn't matter where you spend your winters.
Make sure you have winter clothes with you even in Florida!

We closed our slides (rooms that extend outwards) to protect the "toppers." I turned off the water and disconnected the water line and we huddled under blankets with our 2 electric heaters going full blast!

As you may recall we had lost our Internet a few days back as we had used up our allotted amount so all we had was about 4 very bad TV channels to keep us entertained. Sad... I know. A nap or two did come in handy!

We waited it out and finally today around noon things started to slightly warm up. It went back above freezing and the ice that had covered the motor home like a thick blanket (even on the sides) was beginning to melt. I went outside several times to check before we finally felt confident enough to open the slides again and turn on the water.

The birds came back out this afternoon as did the squirrels. I have no idea where they hid out but we are glad they are OK! Finally I think we got up to about 45F which felt like a heat-wave after what we had been through.

Add to that Barb decided to check our wifi and low and behold we now have our Internet back, so here I am typing another post.

Tonight we headed out for the first time since this storm and we celebrated by going to a laundry-mat and Wal-Mart! Whoo-hoo!

Tomorrow we will spend the day celebrating Barb's birthday by heading up to Nashville, TN to visit some close friends.

We will hit the dusty trails again on Monday.

Safe Travels Friends!