Evacuate!

My family and I once had the experience of evacuating because of an impending hurricane. My brother and his family were in a mandatory evacuation zone and were coming to our house to camp out. We needed extra supplies so I headed to Wal-Mart. I knew a hurricane was coming, but I didn’t think much about it until I arrived at the store.

The bread was gone (and I’m talking all bread items from loaves to bagels), the bottled water was gone, the eggs were gone, the milk was gone, and toilet paper was running low. Not a good situation. I imagine it looked like a store does here in Iowa when a blizzard is headed in. I saw this and went home empty handed. We watched the news and saw what was happening all over town, saw the projected path of Rita, and we decided we should evacuate.

It was an odd experience because I went through the house wondering what we should pack up and take, and what we should leave behind. The family videos and photo albums were definitely loaded up, the computers were taken, some office stuff and important papers were saved, and most everything else was left behind not knowing if we would ever see it again or if it would be damaged. I was proud by how much we left behind. We then drove to Emma’s parent’s which usually took 2 hours but on this trip the traffic made the trip an enjoyable 5 hours.

The whole experience really helped put things into perspective. What is important in life, and what is not? We let things rule our lives sometimes. What part of your life do you need to put back into perspective?

By the way, we took our two dogs … we left the cat behind.