2005: Katrina and Wilma
Like i said earlier, Katrina hit us as a mere tropical storm (Floridian translation: typical summer rainstorm with a little extra wind). We almost couldnt believe that the same storm we walked through the middle of to get to class, ended up causing so much damage.
In October, PBA got a Fall Break – this translates into Private Christian School 4 day weekend for no apparent reason. Of course, a 4 day weekend is always ok with me. At the time i worked for a church with my friend Jonathan Frazier (whom i just call “Fraz” – and whose grown up photog work you can see here), and it was about 45 minutes away on the interstate. We were both logging a lot of miles on our cars, and one of the families saw the need and gifted us a mini van free of charge! The only catch; the minivan was in Indiana. This didnt stop us – we just planned Road Trip ’05 (aka, RT05).
We bought one way flights to Indianapolis, arranged for a friends dad to pick us up, and plotted our trek back to Florida in less than 4 days: this included staying with a friend of a friend in Nashville, seeing Team Bama II in Birmingham, Savannah for Fraz’ soccer game, and sleeping in Jacksonville our last night before heading back to Palm Beach to resume real life again.
I was thrilled. This was my first long road trip that didn’t involve a youth camp or less than 2 hr drive – it entailed multiple stops and adventures for sure.
Night 1: Indy/Nashville
Top Left: me mapping out our route; Fraz enjoying a frosty
Bottom Left: NINJA TRAINING; ….it was 53 and we’re from Fl. we were freeeeezing.
Slighty rocky start…. a busted iPod, no CD’s, coudln’t stay awake, despite the frigid weather, and animal crackers (which we named “the revolution”) were our only source of energy. But we arrived at our destination and each of us separately fell in love….. with Nashville.
Believe it or not…. my first time EVER seeing Fall Leaves!!!!!
There isnt really any reason that we both fell in love with Nashville in those short 6 hours. But enough i guess to where we both applied to transfer the next year – Well, i filled out my application but never sent it in. Fraz applied, got in, and moved less than a year later. it was the first of many Nashville trips for me.
The rest of the road trip seemed like a blur after Nashville, but we still had a blast. I think we spent most of the
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| Sunsets in Savannah more driving… weird. |
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| Our ghetto iPod player. |
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| those are sad faces. not monkey faces. sad for our little road trip to be coming to an end…. |
….or so we thought.
Our last night on the trip, we got the phone call that Hurricane Wilma was rapidly approaching, and that campus was shut down. again. at that point, Hurrication 2005 began. Or RT05 continued… whichever way you wanna think about it.
This lead to even more driving. But this time, all within the state of Florida. Satellite Beach (Jonathan’s hometown), Orlando, Tampa, and St Augstine packed full of friends.
Orlando visiting Mandi Tampa with Fraz’ highschool friends
St Augstine
“i wish i knew how to quit you”
We got to continue our adventure for another full WEEK. That’s right, once again, a long weekend turned into 10+ days. I feel like i could write pages on this. But for your sake, i wont 🙂
