day 38: driving in the downpour

(note: it's obvious that I'm now a few days behind, and I've not gone without blogging each and every day for quite some time. patience with me is required :)

Frantic. Disappointment. Two well-chosen words of the day.

I stayed up until 1:30 this morning packing, and forced myself to go to bed with it still not accomplished, not everything crossed off that well-planned to-do list.

Something woke me a few hours later, and I had that sinking feeling that I should've been up way before then. I was right. Overslept by 45 minutes. Don't even remember the alarms (yes, I have to set two, just in case) going off. Frantic.

Managed to make it to school on time, but with a very disappointed Reagan. Her field trip for the day, the one that her Mom was going to go with her on? Cancelled. Bad storms predicted.

Fast forward a few hours, skipping lots of happenings but nothing too big to skip, and at 4:00, we pulled out of the driveway.

East bound....in the absolutely pouring rain. And I don't mean a gentle downpour. I mean the car wipers were on the highest nonstop movement setting.....for 4 1/2 hours straight. We made one stop somewhere in Ohio (that state kind of all runs together for me) for gas/potty/food at a DQ/gas station where a table of locals held down one corner table, chaw in their mouths, and a few raunchy words out of their mouths. Leave it to me to pick the classier joints for us to dine and dash. Well, if we're being technical, we made two stops, if you count the time I had to pull over at a rest stop to convince McK that I was serious when I told her that if she didn't stop her fit, I was going to pull the car around and go home. (You see, my Grandma made it a tradition on road trips to pack a few small Dollar-Store-esque presents for us to unwrap and keep us busy in the car. Usually my Mom continues this tradition with my kiddos, but with this trip being so spontaneous, she had to no time to prepare, so I picked up the slack. McK's first present did not satisfy her, and so she chucked it all the way back to the trunk of the car. Fit ensued.)

9:00 found us at our stop for the night, an Econolodge in St. Clairsville, OH. And my knack for picking shabby places to stop continues. One light in the room worked, and only one. The tv wouldn't turn on. The sink stopper was missing in the bathroom. We had just enough time for a quick dip in the pool before it closed. Luckily, it wasn't as closed as the hot tub was, which was quartered off by yellow caution tape. Classy. The pool was in disrepair, but there was no convincing my girls of that. They were jumping, splashing, and having me time their laps down and back.

It was a good thing that we were so tuckered out that night, because by 11:00, we were in dreamland.