Sunday, March 28th - Monday, March 29
The Journey
Drew, Briana, Nick Wilson, and I started out our trip from Drew's parents' house in Menomonee Falls. We were up and out of the house by 6:00am and, after a fairly non-eventful day of driving, lay our heads to rest in Cordele, Georgia, sometime around 9:30pm.
That day Drew and Nick Wilson drove the entire time, and besides the runaway truck ramps in Tennessee and the sixteen lane highway in Atlanta, the drive itself was pretty blase. It was raining pretty badly for some time. Nick Wilson was driving like a FIB, and we were pretty much all yelling at him to stop tailgating when we could barely see forty feet in front of the car because of the rain. It was pretty typical. After waking up the next morning and running on the treadmill in the hotel's expansive exercise facility (two treadmills and an eliptical), we stole copious amounts of food (a few Jimmy Dean sandwiches and a packet of oatmeal) and rushed out the door to get back on the road. This, in hindsight, was a terrible idea, specifically because I let the boys check the room before we left instead of doing it myself. The result: both my iPod and my jewelry were left in the hotel room. They found the iPod, but I am now without two pairs of earrings and the necklace and bracelet Drew got me for Christmas. I feel naked. :-(
Somewhere in Southern Georgia or Northern Florida was where we first almost died. Briana was driving, and through no fault of her own this giant bus-RV began merging into our lane while we were right next to it. I don't recall if there was another car in the next lane, and I have no idea how we got out of being crushed, but from that point on, I didn't trust any cars we drove next too. Turns out that this mistrust was indeed a valid one, as later that evening we were also almost killed...THRICE!
We made it to the resort relatively unscathed after "the incident," and settled into our three bedroom, two bath condo, definitely better than staying in some skeezy motel. We ate, explored a bit, and decided to take a trip to Downtown Disney to explore the plethora of gift shops. I bought myself a personalized mug from the Lego store, to add to my growing collection, and we took lots of pictures with funny hats, next to shiny cars, and underneath the giant Tinkertoy windmill.
It was an enjoyable evening, certainly a good way to end a boring (and somewhat stressful) couple of days of driving. Though our night wasn't over. We still had to drive back to the resort, and this proved to be more dangerous than we had expected because when tired mothers of three get behind the wheel of their overflowing minivan after a long day at Disney World, one should watch out. It will not be pretty. I can't even remember how it all happened. It happened so fast, and by fast I mean that we were nearly hit by three different cars on three different occasions in about the span of thirty seconds. The last was the scariest. A light-colored pickup truck tried to merge into our lane after realizing it didn't actually want to take the exit it was halfway up. The result: erratic movements, screaming, and almost a funeral. I applaud Nick Wilson for keeping us in one piece through all of this, but I'm sure he'll be bragging about it for the next couple of years. I may get sick of him.
We made it back to the resort alright. It was probably something close to a miracle we didn't get into a car accident. We checked out Up In The Air from the front desk and watched about half of it before going to bed.
So ends "The Journey."
More to come soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment