On October 8, 2016 my wife and I rode My Ladie from Tampa, FL to the Maverick Harley Davidson in Dallas, Texas hoping for a quick return in March 2017. It wasn’t until March 19, 2018 that finally the Dallas trip became a reality.
I made most of the planning for the Texas-Arizona trip back in 2016, early 2017. When things got a bit complicated at work, the Dallas trip was cancelled. Spring Break became the Summer and Summer became Hurricane Season. My Great Island of Puerto Rico got smashed with 2 major hurricanes, Irma and Maria. But it was the second that put the Island upside down.
Everything started on September 5th, when we received warnings for the first hurricane. People started to prepare and hustled to the store to get supplies. Our product, ice, became a big commodity. Twelve to eighteen hour shifts became the nine to five’s. People were on the streets getting supplies and preparing for the worst. But like every other hurricane, our blessed Island escaped once again from a direct hit. Still, after the hurricane had past Puerto Rico, around 1,000,000 people were without power. Our ice vending machines worked around the clock to supply ice to those without power.
A week later, around the September 15th, we started to get advisories of another major hurricane. In “no time”, advisories became the news of the worst hurricane to hit the Island, ever.
September 19, 2017. A day that every Puertorrican will remember for a long time. I was at the Polarmatic Ice unit in Piñones, a costal town near San Juan that afternoon trying to get people out of the ice line just to get home to safety. We were feeling the wind gusts from the powerful hurricane that was knocking on our door. People with small children were in line getting soaked waiting for their turn to get ice. When I saw the roof of the adjacent building blowing off, it was time to turn the machine off and kick everybody out.
I drove home to do the final preparations for the disaster to come. On the back of my mind I was hoping, like in every other hurricane situation, that El Yunque and the acient gods of our little island will blow the storm away. I took a look at my cel phone to see if I had any unread messages. I noticed that one of my friends, Javi, my insurance guy sent me a picture of some sort. I didn’t pay much attention. My adrenaline was still pumping from the preparations for the hurricane.
I got home around 5:00 pm. All the shutters of the house were up from Hurricane Irma, thank God! I had some time to relax and go thru the message. Javi, my insurance guy called me to ask me if I’d seen the pictures he sent of the machine being on CNN Live. I cracked a laugh…… “How in the hell my ice machines would be on CNN?, from Piñones, Puerto Rico? ” I thought it was a prank, that he was just pulling my leg. He re-sent the pictures with the full clip of the reporter breaking the news. I remembered that, when I was at the unit handling the caos of kicking people out, a reporter came to me, introduced herself, and asked me if she could interview me. My mind was so focus in getting the hell out of the place that I didn’t pay much attention.
The night had gone with some wind and rain, nothing big. At 7:00 am my wife wakes me up in a state of panic. The monster had arrived. All of the house had shutters well installed, besides one of the patio’s big folding door. We had to drill shutters from the inside so the wind didn’t take the door. Hurricane Maria was so strong that, in one instance, I wanted to take the family to an enclosed 6′ x 6′ bathroom to be safe. I opened the garage door to release the pressure and I noticed my pickup truck, with the 40 KW generator on the back moving up and down like it wanted to take off. The most impressive part of all was the roar of the hurricane. It was like a freight train passing by with the devil himself on the wheels.
Later in the afternoon, at 5:40 pm, me and my business partner when out for a spin to see the damage caused by the hurricane. We drove a Jeep Wrangler. Those things can go thru anything. Still, we couldn’t drive more than 5 miles. Devastation, is no word to describe it. We were stunt to see so many trees, poles and power lines on the floor. As we were scrambling to get back to our houses, we noticed some guy, in its late 30’s early 40’s getting out of his car, putting on a work safety vest, taking out an axe and started to cut down a tree that was in the middle of the street. “There is hope, we can do this!” , I thought. That guy inspired to just put my boots and go to work. We all had to do our part in society to bring this Island back to it’s feet. My part was serving ice. Making sure all units were up and running.
Right after the hurricane, the only thing I did was work, work work. Getting back on our feet was the only priority of a nation. In a blink of an eye, it was winter. It’d been 4 months since I even thought of riding. We worked from 6 am to 10-11 pm every single day. We delivered diesel, helped people with our pickup trucks, delivered food and supplies to different needed communities. People in line to buy ice from our machines were so uncontrollable that the state police came to give us a hand. People were desperate to get first necessity items. Lines at gas stations were 8-10 hours long. Hell, one person told me he waited in line for 22 hours for a bag of ice! We tried everything to ease waiting lines. It was helpless. At the end, we just tried to advised people that each machine produced 500-600 bags per 24 hours. 6-8 bags per 15 minutes, so they could see the people in line and did the math.
Mid December arrived and we felt a big load of people off the lines of the ice machines. Electricity was being restored to places little by little. I planned to take a week off and go to Tampa, my second home, to relax with the family.
School started January 8th, 2018. Everything was falling into place. It was time to retake the planning of our Dallas trip. After we arrived from our short trip from Florida, I purchased the tickets for the trip and the date was set, March 19, 2018, finally!!!!!!!!!
The route was already planned. Bags had been packed for more than a year!! My Ladie was ready to go. This has been the longest “planning” of a trip yet!
We are finally off to Texas.