Labor Day, Florida Panhandle, Visiting Eric and Tropical Storm Lee!

Navarre Beach - a few people braved the waves when it wasn't raining

We took a road trip Labor Day weekend to visit Eric in Navarre Fl. This in on the Florida Panhandle, near Eglin AFB where he is stationed. It is about 5 hours away. We left on Friday after work and spent the night in Montgmery AL. That evening we drove through Auburn AL and saw lots of people headed to a weekend of college football. And drove in to Navarre the next day.
All week news of the coming Tropical Storm Lee made us wonder what the weather would be like. As we drove on Saturday morning the weather was sunny and warm. We didn't see much rain on the trip until we crossed in the state of Florida at Dixonville AL. Then it started to sprinkle, rain off and on. By Saturday evening, the rains picked up and Sunday it hit us full force. During Mass we had lots of thunder, lightening and rain.  (Funny cuz last time we were there for Christmas there was a tornado warning during Mass.)
We stayed in a hotel next to Eric's apartment and we were on the ground floor. I think that made us feel safer than the upper floors but I was worried something might crash through the window. We faced away from the Gulf so that helped too.

The view from our hotel room

We did get a reprieve during the day to go check out the Navarre Pier. It was windy with lots of high waves but not raining at the time.

Navarre Pier

On the pier, the wind us blowing straight back

We walked to the end of the pier, some people we actually fishing. As soon as we got back to the beach it started to rain. We had to stay dry in a near by "Hurricaine Shelter"

And thankfully - they served beverages.

Most of the weekend we hung out at the hotel, watching football and tornado warnings. Sunday nite we went to Helen Backs - good place for pizza if you every visit.

Helen Backs or another "Hurricaine Shelter"

Monday we drove back to Atlanta, followed the entire trip by Tropical Storm Lee. As we arrived home, tornado warnings were in effect for parts of the city. There was some damage to the area but not close to our house. And as you know Lee continued up the coast causing a lot of damage.
We felt thankful to be able to make the trip, spend time with Eric and be back home safe and sound.

Visit to northern Georgia

Just a quick note about one of our weekend adventures.
One of the OR RNs at Roswell Surgery Center - Mark - has a cabin near Blue Ridge GA. It is "the gateway to the Blue Ridge Mountains" and at the southern end of the Appalachian Trail. It is about 2 hours from our house. He invited the staff for a Saturday gathering.
We actually drove through the Chattahoochee National Forest to get there. Once we got in the mountainous area there were several heavy rain showers. They would start and stop as we drove along. We came around a curve and a tree was laying across the road. It wasn't huge, maybe 20 inches around and we thought we could move it ourselves. But it was during a heavy downpour so we decided we would wait a few minutes, hoping the rain would turn to a drizzle.  As we waited a truck came behind us and went around us. At first it looked as though he was going to try to drive over it or move it with his truck. He soon realized that wasn't going to work. Then they started to jump out to move it and decided the rain was too heavy. Next a group of  "Wild Hogs" - old guys on motorcycles came along. Since they were in rain gear and wet so they stopped and moved the tree. (Also, one guy in the truck decided to take his shirt off and help - oh I wish he hadn't done that!)

Guys moving the tree!

Thanks guys!

So we proceeded to Mark's cabin with out getting wet!

He has a beautiful place right on the Toccoa River.

Sitting out on the front porch! Awesome porch and awesome view!

Some people went tubing!



As you cas see by the time we got there it was sunny and warm. We enjoyed spending time with Mark and his wife. And as always we liked the road trip - especially with the tree adventure!

Update on work and the PGA Championship

It's been a while since I updated  - sorry! It's not that there is nothing to tell but it has been busy. Work is going well, I do have a preference now for one of the surgery centers. I think it's partially the people there are more diverse - not everyone is from Georgia. Also, I work preop there and at the other place I work mostly PACU. So it's more my comfort zone and seem to be a better fit. For now though I will stay at both places - mainly for "political reasons".

The PGA championship was held in Georgia this year at the Atlanta Athletic Club. On one of our Sunday afternoon drives we decided to go to Johns Creek. One of Jim's coworkers lives there and we decided to check it out. It would be like driving out to ? Queen Creek - maybe not as far. Anyway, I checked to see if there was anything going on of interest that day. I found out that it would be the site of the PGA Championship August 8 - 11th. Because of that they were having a PGA Championship history exhibit. We decided to check it out on our drive.
It was just an exhibit in an empty store front of a strip mall. It had a plaque for each year showing the winner and some sort of memorabilia - club, shoe, glove. As we went through they had a quiz to fill out. Nothing too hard - who won in 19... , who won the last time it was in Atlanta etc. Jim knew several answers and the others were right there in the exhibit. They said if you turned it in you would be in a drawing for prizes. Of course, I'm thinking it was some kind of marketing scam, But we did turn ours in.
Two weeks later I got a call. "Remember when you fill out the quiz at the exhibit?" "Yes..." I said expecting to hear the pitch. "You won two week long passes to the tournament!"  "What? Really?"
Yes I did! Which was great for two reasons: they were worth $285 each! and we wanted to go on Sunday which would cost $75 each. 
So I gave tickets to a friend at work, Jim gave some to a customer and friends at work. But we saved Sunday for us.
It was a great day, for a while quite hot in the sun. But we settled at the 16th hole as the final groups came in. No cameras were allowed but Jim had the need to "check his phone" quite frequently resulting in quite a number of pictures of the day.

The fans sitting on the 16th hole.

Our view on the 16th hole.

We followed the last group to the 18th hole. Jason Dufner had been in the lead and he was a fan favorite being from Auburn Al. However in the last two holes Keegan Bradley came back and tied him. So they had to go back to 16 and play 3 more holes.
We had earpieces that gave the radio broadcast - which was great to keep up with everything. So we stayed at 18, listened and waited. As they came back Keegan Bradley was in the lead, Dufner had a chance to tie again but wasn't able. So Bradley - a rookie in his first major tournament won. It was quite exciting the crowd went crazy.

The crowd follows the golfers to 18

The winner!

A good time was had by all!
Sorry, I couldn't really zoom or edit the pictures too much - they get too blurry.

I have more posts so hopefully the next day or two I can get up to date!