Conquering Carolina, Part III: Giving Mother Nature the Finger

 [EDIT: written t-minus 6 hours before liftoff to NC]

We have successfully completed everything on our to-do lists before we leave. Daisy is asleep -- she will sleep until shortly before the Uber arrives to take us to the airport, then get up, run through a final check of everything, and then we hop in the Uber when it arrives and head out, locking up behind us.

My ask of Daisy to pack only what she needs to survive since we are only there for five days total, and two of those are essentially travel days...was, well, mostly heeded. Again, I travel light -- I have but one backpack, and 25-ish pounds of what's in it are comic books, another five pounds are toiletries and electronics (mp3 players, phone/watch chargers, deodorant/soap, and my meds, etc etc) and the rest is three outfits, the water socks for the ocean, a spare pair of flip-flops and some spare vapes. It's not a lot. Once I get the comics out of the bag it'll be remarkably lightweight. 

Daisy packs her stuff, but she also packs extra stuff that either I can't fit (because I travel light) or they're things I wouldn't pack/consumables. For example, she always makes us sandwiches to eat in the airport during travel, so neither of us have our blood sugar drop too low. She's a good wife that way. But, those go in a little cooler bag (her "personal item" for carryon). In her main suitcase, she packed the parents' birthday presents and about six outfits or so. In her backpack for carryon she has all of her toiletries and cosmetic stuff and meds for any occasion, and a spare change or two of basic clothes in case her luggage gets lost. So, honestly, she did a pretty good job packing this time. Her suitcase, even with the overflow of comics stuffed into it for my Dad and the birthday presents -- is something like 15 pounds. 

She also knows that when I'm there I tend to get souvenir clothing (or just clothing in general, because Gabe's), and we will also be bringing back whatever leftover food we can take home with us, so...she leaves extra space. I know to some extent it irritates her, but I refuse to check a suitcase unless I'm traveling internationally because, to me, it's stupid to do that when it's unnecessary. 

We both have the American Airlines app on our phones now and we both already checked in for our flights. We just drop Daisy's suitcase at the luggage area (she has already paid the checked bag fee) for checking and then off we go to security.

Neither of us want to leave anything to chance anymore. We've both had enough shitty experiences during travel over the past few years to where we just want to streamline everything as much as possible. I just want to get there and get there quickly and safely. Get us our rental car and get us Daisy's bag from the carousel and let's get the fuck on the road to the island, etc. 

I mowed the front yard yesterday, in some of the most scorching sun I've ever worked outdoors in, and did the back yard this morning with some light string trimming in the before it got too hot. It's not perfect, but it is done, and it won't be as miserable to do it again once we return. I probably sweated out enough liquid to need an IV.

Speaking of IVs, in the afternoon we took Pete back to the vet to get some IV fluids put into him. The vet tech showed us how to do it and we left with the bag of fluids, the tubes, and some extra needles. We'll give him 200ml of fluids every week from the comfort of our couch from this point forward. It's remarkably easy, and Pete really doesn't seem to mind it. He doesn't necessarily like it, per se, but he doesn't hate it. I'm sure the needle going into his skin doesn't feel too nice, but he doesn't put up a fight and he seems like he feels much better afterwards. 

On the way home from doing Pete's stuff, we hit up the local Hy-Vee for Ziploc bags (Daisy needed them for cosmetic stuff for the trip) and I got some cash back for my wallet. Everywhere we've been to shop recently I've made sure to get cash back from the debit card, as I like to have cash on me when I travel. It just makes stuff easier when it comes to the airport and when it comes to light grocery shopping while on vacation -- if I can get a few small items here and there with cash, it's less that I eventually have to pay off on a credit card. I do not take my debit card with me when I travel -- the only time I ever did was when I was living in Missouri/Kansas and when I would visit home in WV, because at that time, my bank was still in WV. Nowadays it's pointless; I'd rather not risk losing my lifeline to our bank account and I just get some extra cash out to use so I'm not using my credit cards for everything. So, going on this trip I have about $100 or so to use in plain cash. It's not a lot, but if I want a coffee or an energy drink, or a sandwich, in the airport -- way easier to just pay for it with cash. Gas stations too, or if we need to go pick up something small from the store. Etc. 

Daisy doesn't really understand the cash mentality, but the simplest way I can explain it is that it's money I don't have to track, because (essentially, since it's already come out of our bank account) it's already been spent and accounted for. I got paid today; we're fine. Daisy gets paid the day after we come back home -- we're doubly fine. I have about $15,000 to spare between the three credit cards I'm taking with me -- I'm not worried about spending money at the moment. But cash is nice, and it's convenient, and it's there.

Daisy has now dyed her hair three times in as many days -- first with the platinum purple (I mentioned this before) and then with my deep "Purple AF" dye, which made it a beautiful dark purple. She then applied some of my blue to it to see if she could get a more blue/violet hue, and it didn't really take that well. Her hair is now a deep, thick purple that I absolutely love and that she isn't a huge fan of overall, but to her it's fine and she can deal with it for the trip. 

My aunt and uncle are likely leaving the house in WV as I type this, in order to get on the road down to the island around the time they said they'd arrive there tomorrow. I spoke to my aunt earlier this week and asked if she would bring me down a couple of loaves of D'Annunzio's Italian bread from WV -- it is my favorite bread of all time and I cannot get it outside of West Virginia because it is from a local bakery in the Clarksburg area. She confirmed with me that she got the bread for me and would bring it. If all goes well in their travels -- if -- we should see them in the evening hours once we get to the island. The bread also stops me from needing to purchase bread at the store when we get on the ground in NC.

Last night, I decided to try out the beard dye. So, I followed all of the instructions, mixed it up, and applied it to my face. Holy hell did it burn as it sat there (I assume it's not really supposed to burn, but oh well). I waited the amount of time it said to wait, and then leapt into the shower to scrub it off.

It turned my beard this weird shade of black/blue. Arr, I be the dread pirate Bluebeard.

Yeah, no, not doing that. So, after multiple scrubs with my Neutrogena face wash, I got it to a more subtle black without blue and yes, there's still some gray, but it does look a lot better and a lot more natural. The burning is what made me want to take it off so fast, but apparently for really gray beards like mine you're supposed to leave it on for ten minutes. Yeah, fuck that, it hurts. I might try it again once we get home just to see how dark I can really get the beard, but basically as an experiment only as I plan to shave clean within a few days of returning home anyway. I have to reset my facial hair, so to speak, so that I can have a full beard grown out and ready for the Canadian wedding in October. 

The cats know we're leaving. Pete is well aware, and has been glued to us for the past two days or so. When he sees the suitcase come out, he knows. Hank and Emmy know too -- Hank has been attached to my hip this evening and has been very lovey, and Emmy has been mad and has been hiding under the blankets in the living room. A lot. Mable, I assume, has been sleeping curled up with Daisy in bed while she naps, as I have not seen her since Daisy went to lay down. 

The double trouble boys, however...

Charlie and Gary have never been without us before. We adopted both of them this year and we haven't gone on any trips since. They don't know what suitcases are -- to them, they're just larger cardboard boxes to jump in that just so happen to hold some clothes and toiletries. I don't know how they're going to react once we're gone from the house for a while. Both are very high-energy, needy little boys. While they seem to really like the Catsitter, she's also not us. I'm sure they'll all be fine, including the boys, but it still pains me to have to leave them. We're going to come home smelling like dogs, too -- my parents have three dogs and my aunt/uncle have one that I'm sure they're bringing with them on the trip. 

Plus side, they don't have the mentality that Sadie had when she was alive -- which was to run and hide somewhere extremely inconvenient or impossible to extract her from before we left...and then upon our return home, to lock eyes with us and then go hide again for twelve-plus hours. The one time we left Sadie for a week, before she got too old to do anything but hide, was our trip down to New Orleans in 2016 for our friends' wedding -- and when we came home, she sat in the middle of the living room in our apartment, locked eyes with me, screamed, and pissed on the floor. That was how Sadie showed how angry she was that I'd left her. I'm not making that up -- that is a 100% true story.

Here's hoping neither of the double trouble boys react like that when we come home. 

Aside from any delays or other travel woes we may face during this trip, there is one last thing looming over our heads, like a sword about to fall...and that is Hurricane Erin.

We fly home at 9:18 AM on Thursday, August 21st, out of Wilmington's airport. The track as of now, based on the graphic above, just baaaaaarely brushes North Carolina, mainly the Outer Banks area, Cape Hatteras, etc. That's way north of where we are, by a good 100+ miles (if not more). But, the impact of the storm churning out at sea will likely make the oceans rough and not really conducive to swimming or playing in on the beach while we're there (and it may be raining/storming half the time we're there anyway). 

Actually...the weather forecast while we're there is showing...well...nice. No mention of anything hurricane-related.

Like, that's better/cooler weather than we've had in Omaha this week -- I'm stunned. Omaha has been a goddamn sweat box this week and the temperature has hit the high 90s every day, with heat advisories in effect for the past several days. We've had to roll the dice on possibly killing the air conditioner to just keep it somewhat cool in the house -- it's 82 degrees outside right now, at 12:30 in the morning.

The weather for NC this week looks much better. Now, mind you, it's North Carolina -- the south, on the ocean, on an island -- so no matter the temperature, it's almost always 100% humidity in the summer. Even at night, and especially in the early morning hours when I sit on the back porch and sip coffee while I read the news for the day, or play a game on my phone, or read a book. It's the south, you're on the ocean, you can't escape it. But, plus side is that it almost never dips below 40 degrees there and if it snows, it's a dusting and the entire island shuts down. So, there's tradeoffs. 

So, I guess we wait -- we wait to see if the hurricane track changes and brings it closer or further away from land. That's outside of our control, of course, and it's definitely outside the control of basically anything we can do to alter our travel plans -- we're on an island and we have a rental car, it's not like we can really escape it if it decides to come barreling inland. I don't even know what we'd do in that scenario, to be honest -- like what would be our contingency plan if we wake up Sunday morning and find out that the hurricane has changed course and will smack right into North Carolina the day before we'd fly home? Can the flights be changed? Can we drive to another airport out of the way of the hurricane and fly out, and drop off the rental car there instead? Who fuckin' knows -- I've never encountered a scenario like that before, so I couldn't really tell you. At least the parents could either choose to ride it out or drive back up to WV for a few days -- we don't really have that option as, well, if it shuts down the airport we're stranded there unless we can get to another airport. 

There's a part of me that's like yeah, this figures -- the one thing I've been looking forward to for months, the one chance I have to get away from stress and bullshit and be able to decompress and of course the first hurricane of the season fires up and heads towards exactly where I'm supposed to be. Serves me right for getting my hopes up for having some time without stress in my life, because apparently that's never in the cards for me. 

There's also a part of me that's like Oooh yeah, close call with a hurricane, ride the waves and give the finger to mother nature, Brandon -- this is adventure and excitement you won't get in Nebraska, that's for goddamn sure. 

I don't know which of the two is going to dominate my thoughts for the next couple of days while this entire scenario with Erin plays out. 

So, I'll leave you with that. Off we go, on two different planes to the south, to the beach, to a Carolina that must be conquered.