Sunday makes 2 months until the start of the new sled season. The AVSA crew was in Frederic today (Saturday) working on brushing the trails to make things better for all of us when the snow comes.It was a nice day in Frederic today and even had some 4 wheelers stop in. Will the snow really be here December 1st, who know we will just have to wait. Also once again Oct 1st is the opening day of bow season and I plan on spending some time in the woods in the morning just to see if I can get a glimpse of Big Don. I just don’t feel like I am ready for it this year as I have been in the past but its always nice to get out there just to relax. On Tuesday this week I went down to Fort Myers where I met up with my buddy Bob who picked me up along with his side kick Bernie where we headed off down to the Keys to see how Bobs place made it thru the Hurricane. You cant even imagine the devastation down there until you see it yourself in person. Many large camps set up by Red Cross and other agencies to help the people there that are displaced. Miles and miles of trash along the highway as they are slowly bringing it out from the neighborhoods to the highway where many hundreds of semi trucks are getting loaded one after another. Still now 3 weeks later there is no water or electric at the Venture Out where we went to. Many owners still haven’t been there to see if they had a place or not. When we pulled in the Red Cross was there passing out food to people and Bob was lucky as his place was still standing but heavy roof damage and a lot of water damage. The first day we cleaned up the yard, lots of debris from everywhere and we started piles out front. The house was elevated and many things were blown underneath it so we crawled under that to get the things out. Next day we pulled up flooring, removed furniture and beds and appliances. So many places with just piles and piles thruout the area. There was a line on the highway about a quarter mile long of nothing but appliances 4 or 5 deep. All those fridges loaded with food in unbearable heat. I actually felt bad that we went in with a motorhome with generator so we had a cool spot to go but many people had nothing or generators and fans in some places. Key West lucked out as the damage down there wasn’t any where as bad as what it was at Cudjoe Key. The other thing that really made things sink in to me was that a guard at the gate told us if we needed anything to go into this large pavilion which was just like a store but full of donations for people that needed supplies, food, canned good, cleaning supplies, tooth brushes, soaps, Fema food trays, and I bet there were 500 cases of water in there. It will be a long time until things ever even get close to normal down there. In the Venture Out park we were in there are about 650 places and 70 of them were totally demolished and most every place had varying degrees of damage. Bob lucked out but the house across the street from him looked like it just blew up. Here is a link to all the pics I took down there Hurricane Irma, Cudjoe Key
