![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.nhc.noaa.gov\/storm_graphics\/AT09\/refresh\/AL0905W5_sm2+gif\/204832W_sm.gif\")
<\/div>\nUPDATE:<\/b> The Friday afternoon update shows Irene strengthening, but turning. My blog-hurricane prevention spell is working!!<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Early Saturday morning we’re scheduled to set out for a week-long vacation in a beautiful beach house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Three families, consisting of six adults and nine kids (ages 3 – 14), will make for a full house. But it’s a big place, with lots to do and we’re sure to have a great time.<\/p>\n
At least, that’s the plan. It seems Mother Nature may send along an uninvited guest, one of her daughters, Irene<\/a>. As I write this on Thursday night, the National Hurricane Center in Miami reports that Irene is “continuing to gradually get better organized”. That’s how tropical storms become hurricanes I guess, they get organized, pack their rain and winds together tightly, and then get moving! The current track<\/a> shows Irene will join us by 2pm on Tuesday.<\/p>\n What’s a traveler to do? We did buy the travel insurance to protect us in such a circumstance, but that only pays us back if we are faced with a mandatory evacuation while we’re there. I’m not yet as organized as Irene. I still have packing to do. Nevertheless, this vacation is on, and we won’t be turning back unless we have to.<\/p>\n So C’mon Irene, give us a break. As much you’d like to introduce us to such local customs as filling sandbags, boarding up windows, and listening to waves crash in the darkness of a power outage, we would prefer some sunny skies, gentle breezes and comfortable air conditioning, ok?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" UPDATE: The Friday afternoon update shows Irene strengthening, but turning. My blog-hurricane prevention spell is working!! — Early Saturday morning we’re scheduled to set out for a week-long vacation in a beautiful beach house on the Outer Bank…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38795482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3mOvc-2CMtA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38795482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38795482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38795482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173354521,"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38795482\/revisions\/173354521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38795482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38795482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casey.life\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38795482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}