First, thanks for your concern. We are home now and safe. We just picked a bad time and place for a vacation. Rather than hijack my own post I will start another thread in the proper section about our adventure.
Update: Godaddy support can't help, they say this is a forum software configuration problem and after a little research I believe them.I am going to study the SMF documentation and read some threads on the SMF support forum discussing similar problems.
Bottom line the server swap will be delayed. We have some time to figure this out and rest assured my first priority is to minimize any disruption of the forum and the user database.