In the midst of tropical storm Imelda, we snuck off for a little fun. All the way to Decatur for an English country dance weekend.

Timing is everything, isn’t it. We planned this trip nearly a year in advance! And don’tcha just know it, this pesky little not-quite-a-hurricane decided to come barreling into town. We hit the road at 4:30 am, well before dawn and ended up driving straight into a band of truly terrible weather. We’d hoped by going north instead of east that we’d have missed it, Yeah, no, not so much.

Pitch black with no lights on the highway, we could hardly see the front end of the car, much less anything else on the road. We seriously considered turning back, but that would have meant leaving the raised highway and heading into unlit frontage roads were likely to harbor high water. It turned out to be a good decision as we wouldn’t have been able to get home–everything was flooding behind us.

The drive to Decatur took about 13 hours, much of it spent on the phone with my sister and youngest son who were in various stages of being affected by the floods. Sis was stranded in a parking lot, taking refuge from high water on her way to work. Son stayed hunkered down hoping for the roads to clear before he went into work. By the time we got to Georgia, sis had spend over 4 hours stranded, finally making it home with the help of a friend. Meanwhile back at my house, the lowest house on the street had started flooding. The neighbors and their 4 cats and 2 dogs were sheltering with my son at our house, harkening back to hurricane Harvey!

Thankfully, the storm passed by nightfall and the water stopped rising, so only that one house on our street was affected and we didn’t have to immediately return to deal with storm damage.

Quite the auspicious start to the weekend, wouldn’t you say?

The event was held in the Decatur recreation center, near the Old County Courthouse in a pedestrian friendly area filled with amazing little shops and restaurants. During the course of the weekend, we ate amazing noodles and fried dumplings, joined half a dozen of our dance buddies for a ‘pick-up’ dance after lunch in the middle of the square, workshopped to improve our techniques, learned new dances, and generally danced our slippers off with around a hundred of our closest dance buddies.

Here’s a peek at our memorable weekend.

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