back from hurricane country

[greg]

well, I made it back to Utah in one piece. I've now been fortunate/unfortunate enough to live through two hurricanes. One while I was living in Biloxi, Mississippi back in '84, and this one in Florida in '04. So, every 20 years or so I'm due for one, so don't be around me in 2024.

I know people always say that it's amazing what mother nature can do, but when you witness it first hand.......it just blows you away (ha ha pun intended). Back in '84, I lived right across the street from the beach. I'd walk out the front door in the morning to see the beautiful sands and waves......it was a very nice place to be.....until the hurricane hit. It hit us very early morning, throwing trees through our front window, rain and wind absolutely tearing everything up, me and my wife just huddled in the bathroom hoping the house would withstand it. When it finally let up, I went to assess the damage. I made my way through our shattered house to the front door, and opened it up to look outside. i almost fell over backward with suprise. There, right in front of my house, was a HUGE container ship. It had broken free from its moorings, and was beached not more then 30 feet from my front door. I had to look at that thing for probably 30 days until they could refloat it and drag it out to sea again.

This time in Florida, it wasn't quite as graphic to me as to what a hurricane can do, as I was much more inland, but it was still very easy to see its power. There was allot of devistation, with houses literaly being reduced to piles of lumber, roofs being completely torn off, trees being uprooted and thrown through anything in their path, whatever you could emagine wind doing, it did. I was in a hotel, feeling pretty safe, and my window was on the down-wind side of the building. Maybe it was kind of stupid, as this is how most people die in storms (thinking they are safe), but I opened up my window and watched as the wind whipped by. It reminded me so much of the scene in The Wizard of Oz, when the tornado was lifting everything up into its funnel. As I watched, I seen all kinds of things go by.......signs, wood, branches, shingles......I kept expecting a house or the witch to go by. ha ha.

I don't know, but maybe it's good to be involved in something like this once in awhile. Sometimes I get feeling like mankind is not far from destroying itself, or that the world is just so screwed up. Then, I'm in the middle of something like this, and you see that people are really capable of being unbelievably compassionate to each other. There were allot of great things done down there to help each other out. It's not only a way for nature to clear out the old growth of trees, but maybe a way to clear out the old growth in us too, make way for us to renew our relations with our fellow man.

OR, maybe it's the only way to get the TOs in Florida to rebuild their tracks. just a thought

[J Gallo]

I sorta know what you mean. When I was living in Orlando, I didn't have to experience any true hurricanes, but we did have a couple pretty severe storms that game me a small indication of what it might be like. And during one of these storms, an actual tornado touched down about 5 miles from where I was living.

Good to have ya back, hope to see you at the track soon!

btw, how's the 20" treating you?

[greg]

the couple times I've raced the 20", it was pretty good. I like the feel of it, as it seems to be a fairly stable bike. I definately plan on racing it more once the state finals are done. I just need to wrap up that #1 plate on my cruiser first.