Flashback Friday (part 22) - Hurricane Isabel

When a catergory 5 hurricane is heading to your town you can do one of two things: batton down the hatches and ride it out or leave town.

In September 2003, Hurricane Isabel was heading up the coast to hit land in Virginia Beach. We had tickets for a Thursday night game in Blacksburg the next day, five hours inland so we loaded up The Neighbors RV and headed West. My brother was left behind with our dog and The Neighbors' "Old Dog" as she was called.

We tailgated in the wind and rain with my parents and Buck and Sunny, their neighbors at the lake, by their RV as well. Caroline and I had a good time before the game.
Two of the dogs made the trip, JD and Ricki who got into the spirit of things.As true college football fans, we were Not going to let a silly old catergory 3 hurricane stop us from watching Virginia Tech Hokies play the Texas A&M Aggies. We packed accordingly.Buck is a diehard Aggies fan and leaves Virginia for College Station, Texas in his RV with his wife Sunny, for the duration of the football season.

For this game, Sunny opted to stay dry in the RV and because our tickets weren't together, Caroline and Buck were seated in a different part of Lane Stadium. It was a battle of defensives and the final score was 35-19. Buck explained to Caroline that it was customary for all Aggie men to kiss their dates every time they scored. Caroline not knowing any better obliged the man who is 40+ years her senior. The Aggies scored mostly field goals to get to their final score of 19 which means a lot of kisses. After the game and back in the RV, Sunny informed Caroline that in the 45 years of going to see the Aggies play, she had never heard that rule before.

Silence.
Then LAUGHTER.

Mostly by Buck whose face had turned 10 shades of red.

As for the hurricane, we were lucky and only lost one shutter but were out of power for over a week. There were lines for gas and the only sound in our neighborhood was of the flock of mosquitos going by and generators humming. It was a quick introduction into how to live like a pioneer woman.

We approached the other hurricanes in the area a little differently after this one.