Our big move-in day was Labor Day weekend. We started moving the week prior, and what a hectic week, to say the least. We should’ve taken the U-Haul experience as an omen of what would come. That experience, though, is a post for another day.
One thing I learned through the whole experience: I’ll never quit my day job and become a professional mover. One U-Haul truckload on Sunday plus a pick-up truckload, and another pick-up truckload on Wednesday, and on Thursday, we still had more junk to move. We went back on Thursday to get the rest of our stuff, and guess what? We still couldn’t get everything in the pick-up truck.
You might think we were moving a mini-estate, but, no, we were moving a one-bedroom apartment. It’s not that we had a lot of junk to move. We just didn’t know how to pack it all.
Thursday, we had to be out of the apartment. Our landlord collected our keys while we were moving and told us to make sure we locked up behind us. “No problem,” we thought, “we only have the one more load and collecting our keys now would save us a trip to the office to turn the keys in.”
Sounded good until we realized that what was left wouldn’t fit in our truck. We had to make a second trip. Fortunately, Keith hadn’t turned in his key to the patio door. We knew we had to take the first load home and turn around to retrieve the last of our crap since we still had a key and midnight was our deadline to be out of the apartment.
None of this sounds like a big deal unless you keep one thing in mind: a one-way trip from Baltimore to our new house is about a two-hour, fifteen-minute drive.
We returned to Baltimore for the last of our stuff at around two in the morning. We loaded it up and headed home. By this time, the leading edge of tropical storm Ernesto made its way into the area. The steady, light rain wetted out junk, but most of what we had wouldn’t have gotten damaged even if we drove home in downpours.
We finished unloading our truck as the more steady rains started falling. It was seven in the morning and we were beat. Neither one of us really wanted to go to sleep because we didn’t know what Ernesto would bring. We rested a bit easier, though, knowing the weathermen had forecasted the storm to move more inland and far west of us. We figured we could deal better with any water problems if we got some rest, first.
We woke up around two in the afternoon. The wind howled and the rain fell in sheets. We had no TV since, somehow, our TV didn’t survive the move. It shorted out the moment we plugged it in. All we had was a little portable radio.
From the looks outside, we sensed Ernesto didn’t go as far inland nor west as the weathermen had predicted. From the reports on the radio, we knew Virginia was hit hard and figured the brunt of the storm hit us.
Our front yard was wet, but no flooding. Around six in the evening, the storm seemed to abate some. Since we had no refrigerator or food, we decided to take our chances and try to head out of the marshlands to get something to eat and buy some cleaning supplies.
We got out with no problems. In fact, we were happy and felt for sure we weathered the storm just fine. We stopped at a little Mom and Pop restaurant in Church Creek and enjoyed a hot, home cooked meal. We went on up to Cambridge to get our supplies and headed home. All tolled, we were gone about two hours.
The rain had subsided to a steady light, almost moderate fall. The winds still blew, but nowhere near what they were earlier in the afternoon. As far as we were concerned, the storm was over and it wasn’t a big deal.
When we got to the end of MD 335, where we turn left to head the fourteen miles back to our house, police had set up a roadblock. It being the weekend, I immediately thought of a DUI checkpoint. I wasn’t worried. Keith was drinking his small bottle of wine, but my beer was in the back of the truck, unopened. At most, I figured the cops would tell me it was illegal for Keith to be drinking, but wave me on since I obviously hadn’t a drop to drink.
I pulled up to the checkpoint. The officer came over with his flashlight shining in my face. “Where you headed?” he asked.
I told him home and he started asking me more questions, including asking to see my driver’s license. “You’re driver’s license says you live in Baltimore,” he said.
“Yes, I know. We literally moved here this morning,” I replied.
“You need to get this changed if you live here.”
“Yes, I know, but it is Labor Day weekend and I doubt I will be getting it done any time soon.”
He handed my license back and waved me on. “Be careful, though. Tides are running high tonight.”
We continued on our way. While it made sense to have a DUI checkpoint on Labor Day weekend, two things didn’t make sense. First, why put a checkpoint way out in the middle of nowhere instead of on a main road? Second, why set up so early, before most people even think of going to a bar?
No, the checkpoint didn’t make sense, but after a mile or so down the road and we hadn’t hit any water, it made more sense than the officer’s warning to be careful of the rising tides. Sure, they do things differently on the Eastern Shore, but the whole DUI checkpoint thing was downright backwards.
We came up to the first set of two, 90-degree turns in the road. On any day, the water on both sides of the road going through the turn is near level with the road surface. As we approached the turn, I told Keith, “If there’s going to be water anywhere, it’ll be here. If it’s not here, then that cop was lying and that really was a checkpoint.”
I inched my way around the turns fully expecting a flood.
Nothing.
As I rounded the last of the two turns, I picked up my speed. “I reckon that was a checkpoint. It doesn’t make sense, but there’s no water here.”
I know sooner made that comment when, “Whoosh!” I hit water. It was deep, too. My truck instantly slowed to a crawl.
Coming next post…the tides keep rising and we’re 15 miles from home
© 2006
Mark Darien
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