Our First Day of Evacuation from Hurricane Irma

We left the house this morning at 9:11 and got on I-95 north. It wasn't too long after getting on to I-95 that we had to slow down because of traffic. We were now part of the evacuation from Hurricane Irma.

Fletcher called us to see how we were doing and I told him about the heavy traffic. He suggested that I download the Florida 511 app to find out about traffic on the highways. So I started using FL 511 to check the traffic on I-95 north of us. I also checked the northbound traffic on the Florida Turnpike and I-75. Even with the traffic delays on I-95 it looked to be better than the traffic on the Turnpike and I-75.

We stopped at 12:00 at the Rest Area north of Titusville at mile marker 225 to have lunch and walk Tinker. We were back on I-95 by 12:30. We had driven 69 miles from home.

The closer we got to New Smyrna, the heavier the traffic got until we came to a crawl. One time we actually got up to 20 mph!

We stopped at 3:30 at the Flying J at St. Augustine for gas and paid $3.199 a gallon for premium. While Mike was pumping gas, I went inside and bought some Cinnabon BonBites and 2 cups of coffee for us to have on the road. So now we have driven a total of 80 miles since our last stop at the Rest Area and we're only 149 miles from home. Oh my, that's 80 miles in 3 hours!

We continued on north on I-95 to Jacksonville and then on I-295 to I-10 West. The traffic heading west on I-10 seemed to be somewhat better until we crossed over I-75 and then we ran into the west bound traffic that was backed up. However, just the short glimpse I got of I-75 - it looked like a parking lot - almost no movement!

We arrived at Madison Campground at 7:15 tonight. We had driven 157 miles since our stop for gas at
Flying J at St. Augustine in just under 4 hours.

We both went in to the Campground office and checked in. Madison Campground is a Passport America member and the current full price rate is $50 a night. We did get a discount for tonight and paid $43.76 including tax, but it wasn't the usual 50% for Passport  America rates. Then we were escorted to our camping spot for tonight. Mike hooked us up to the water and electric for tonight. We didn't hook up the Dish satellite and managed to tune in a few local TV stations. 

Mike definitely didn't feel like getting the grill out and cooking since he had been doing all the driving today. So we had turkey and ham sandwiches and pasta salad for dinner. Tomorrow I'll take some pictures of our campsite before we leave in the morning. 

We drove 308 miles today and it took us 10 hours. While Mike was driving, I spent the better part of my day checking the traffic situation on the highways and using Gas Buddy to check on the availability of gas along our route.