I have spent the last few days at my parents house waiting out the storm. And it's been a long wait. Emily and I got here on Thursday. A mandatory evacuation was set for Friday in our area, but we had already spent most of the day preparing the house, so we decided to beat the traffic. The storm was scheduled for Saturday afternoon. Because it had slowed to a crawl, it didn't come until early Sunday morning. We spent most of the time playing cards, eating and being bored off our asses. The storm didn't seem that bad. It came in waves, with a band hitting every couple hours. It caused a lot of damage because it was over the state for so long. It stormed all day Sunday and half the day today. I have been trying to call the information lines in Volusia county for hours. Finally I got word from one of our neighbors that our building looks OK.

My grandmother has been stubborn about the whole thing. She didn't want to come over during the hurricane. Between bands yesterday, Emily and I went over there to check on her. She didn't have power or phone lines, and she still refused to come over. Finally we convinced her to go out to eat with us tonight. We had the now routine after hurricane meal at Too Jays, before Emily and I went to a movie. We saw "Paparazzi", which was just as stupid as it was entertaining. As we pulled into my parent's driveway, a huge black bear spotted the car and walked around the side of the house. Needless to say, Emily and I were terrified. I put on the brights and pulled up to the front of the driveway, to see if he was gone. He wasn't; he just stood on the side of the house licking his lips. I honked until my parents opened the garage and we both ran in