Day 13

Today we were actually able to leave OBX. It felt like leaving family. One of the maintenance men that we had talked to several times stopped us even to say Goodbye. The guy at the front desk said Really you are leaving us? LOL But in our whole hotel I bet there were only 10 rooms rented. We had survived the hurricane together. So we felt close. But we had really originally wanted to leave on Friday so today we really needed to hit the road.

My stitching retreat was supposed to start Wednesday and I wanted to make it there. Of course with the way our trip has been there was problems. The hotel the retreat is located at got hit hard during the hurricane. The long fishing pier that everyone just loved walking out on was destroyed! They still don't have power. (We have now heard they even got their roof destroyed from someone who had flown into to town.)  140 people are planning on arriving now what are we to do. Luckily our retreat coordinator was able to get everything solved. We were moved to another hotel and they were ready for us crazy ladies. Several had to unfortunately cancel but I heard at least 75 or 80 are still coming. The retreat was moved up a day so we really needed to get here safely. I checked our route and it looked open so we hit the road this morning for our 6 hour drive. We saw amazing destruction on our way. Huge trees that just shouldn't be easy to knock over were crashed over like little sticks. We saw some on houses unfortunately. There was probably 200 electric work crews moving in trying so hard to get the area all powered back up. We kept giving them thumbs up and saying Thank you! We also saw a lot of flooding! But we made it safely. What a long day!

This is what our new hotel looks like. What an amazing tower! We went from a small hotel to these HUGE condo style rooms. 2 bedrooms 2 bathrooms. Get this 2 doors to get in! A backdoor on a hotel What!?! It's really neat. I'll make sure to get pictures. I'm almost too tired to type tonight haha. I stopped to visit the ladies and I'm doing this post but then I'm falling into my bed. So glad we got moved safely and that they were able to find us a new spot for the retreat this year. Would have hated for all this to be a wasted trip! Of course I would have just been thankful for the already long list of new memories.

Tomorrow the PALs Retreat will start. I'll finally pick my stitching needles up again. The hotels before this one didn't have light good enough to stitch by. I need to find a better portable light to take on vacations with me. Thanks for all the wonderful comments. Hopefully I'll get time to answer back soon.