Day Two - Morning Evacuation

We woke up and wandered to the lobby hoping for some food. Mike said to get up early so that we could get breakfast. I said, "Breakfast? They're going to evacuate, they won't be bothered feeding us. There'll be food wherever they take us." So we found rolls, luncheon meats, juice and coffee in the lobby and made a few to take with us.

We wandered to the check in area and a line was forming in two areas. What's this? Who knows. So we sit up there to be closer to the buses when they come. The line gets longer. I ask this woman what the line is for and she says in Germanic broken English, "must check out to get bus." I'm like... check out? what? No one told us that. So - frig - I jump in line. Mike's gone back to the room for his blackberry charger. AARP has just given me world access via Cingular. It was our only means of communicating with people back home. (Mike had Nextel - no good overseas).

The line gets longer and longer and still no one's told me to actually line up except for this German woman. The staff never made one announcement. (Which was foreshadowing of things to come).

We met some nice people in line and heard people's stories as they filtered past us. In the chaos, I heard people saying that they were charging people for excursions they were obviously not taking on Sat. & Sun- since we would be evacuated due to the hurricane. The nerve. I assume they straightened it out, but they must have tried that with everyone because I kept hearing complaints the entire time we were in line -- which was at least an hour- standing. Mike and I took turns.

While in line, I noticed people with their backpacks full of their belongings. I'd crammed ours in my AARP tote (thank you, Alana!) but that was all we had. I was kicking myself for making Mike leave his backpack at home. I can hear myself saying, "We're grown-ups now, we have tons of matching luggage - use that. Why would you take a backpack that isn't even on wheels?" (there was probably even a 'sheesh' muttered under my breath). I mentioned this to Steve (some guy from Caldwell, NJ in line behind me) and he just laughed. "Yes," he said, "I got the same speech and have been told many times to grow up." Thier bag was even smaller than ours. Tee hee. Well, at least I'm in the nagging wife club.

Incidentally, they WERE serving breakfast. (Again, Mike was right). I have now aquiesced that Mike has veto power in states of emergency. However, he has rubbed off on me. I packed asprin (for infections), bandaids, flashlights (thanks, Kathy), scissors (in case we had to cut sheets or clothing off of people), bug spray, waters, pillows and a blanket - among other things. I paused in front of the sewing kit - thinking that someone may need stitching so I should bring that. Then thought better of it, because, as with all great ideas, he who thunk it, does it. I wasn't sewing anyone's skin. I left the kit. Everything else small enough was in ziplocks and I even put my laptop in a giant ziplock before we left. Oh, and I brought 2 dvds and an extra battery for boredom.

From this lobby, we were bussed to the main lobby to stand in a line that spanned about 2-3 buildings. This one went rather quickly, but I think it was also about an hour long.

The waiting was too grueling, so I didn't take any photos, but I found this one from AP.