Week 575 - Hurricane Ike Photo Collection - 08-20-2017

Hurricane Ike Photo Collection

As we searched for last week's Favorite Photos #14 we ran across these pictures from September 2008. But first we wanted to show you Galveston Island State Park. We stayed at this beautiful park in April 2007. Our back-in site was on the beach side of this barrier island. Each site had a nice artistic covered picnic table. We enjoyed two lovely days at the park.

Now on to this week's story. Before we started our full-time travel we had stayed at the Outdoor Resorts in Las Vegas in May 2006. This was our first visit to one of these ownership parks. Most residents have purchased their own lot and enhance them with outdoor kitchens, BBQs and other creative ideas. In September 2006 we stayed at Outdoor Resorts of the Ozarks. It was so beautiful that even though we had only been traveling full-time for one month, Ellen wanted to buy a lot! Pete agreed on the beauty but we did not buy as we had so much more to see. Little did we know we would now be in our 12th year of full-time, move-often travel!

In September 2008 we came for a second visit to the Ozarks. 1) As you come close you pass by Pastor Teddy's Chapel on the Hill on the way to the 2) resort.

You can see how beautiful this park is. Each site has a view of Table Rock Lake.

This is our good friend Kevin's water front site. He has a nice patio with chairs around a fire pit. It was a great place to spend the night getting to know new people.

That was until Sunday morning at 2:19am when these photos were taken by Ellen. Hurricane Ike had left the Gulf of Mexico. From Wikipedia "After tracking inland, Ike weakened as it sped northward and later northeastward, weakening to tropical storm status east of Palestine, Texas late on September 13 and later becoming a powerful extra-tropical cyclone on September 14 over the Ozarks"

At 6:29 in the morning the storm had passed, but left its devastation behind.

Kevin's patio was trashed. We had closed our slides when the storm hit and we avoided any damage.

Quite a number of trees in the resort were uprooted or snapped off.

On Sunday morning we headed over to the chapel thankful for our safety.

Pastor Teddy lead us in prayer, worship and shared the Word with the residents who come from the resort.

After church we jumped on the ScooterShip and set out to see the damage. We estimate that thousands of trees were downed. We did not see any state road crews but lots of local folks came out with their chain saws opening up the blocked roads.

This was probably a little stream or dry ravine the day before.

We think perhaps that Ike might have improved this structure.

This was the return road we had chosen when we planned our day's route. Not willing to see if the scooter floats, we found a 20 mile detour to get us back home.

Arriving back at the resort we made plans to leave. We foolishly had let the MotherShip's diesel get down below a quarter tank. That meant that if the power went out, we could not run the generator. However, our friends Paul, Cara and Kevin were having none of our talk. They told us if we stayed longer and needed diesel they would load up their gas cans and go to town for us!

While blessed by their offer, we still thought it best to go. That is when they bribed us! "If you stay, how about us heading up the lake tomorrow for lunch near Branson, Missouri?" Wow, this is Southern Hospitality. We stayed three more nights.

The next morning a dozen folks took two boats for a wonderful day of boating and lunch at the Bearded Clam. Great food, great day, great to be a full-timer.

Back in Galveston, this is what was left of our beautiful Galveston Island State Park (9-14-2008). Today (8-20-2017) it has been reopened, although the beach side of the park where we stayed will not be ready until 2018.

One of the best aspects of living in your motorhome and not planted at one resort is that you can move to nice weather or move away from bad weather. If we were in Galveston before Ike hit, we would have left. However, we had not paid attention to the extra-tropical cyclone downgrade of Ike. We thank the Lord that we suffered no injury or damage and actually it was awesome to see the power of God in that storm.

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. "And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. "Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand." Matthew 7:24-27

With love, Pete, Ellen and Mandy

Photos from Apr 2007