PA Trip--The Final Post--The Journey Home

I got up at 6:30am on the day of our departure. For those of you who know me this is really early. I hate getting up early. But I had to shower, get ready, load the car and I wanted us to leave around 8am. Well, we left around 9am. I don't know what possibly took us so long to get going but whatever. We stop and gas up the car. We stop at the flower shop to order flowers for Carmella (this is our annual tradition to thank her). When we get to the flower shop it is 9:20am and the shop opens at 9:30am. Argh. Fine. We go to a little store to get some drinks for the day. Somehow we buy (really I should say I because Lori didn't buy as much as I did) a ton of them (I had only opened one of them by the time we had reached Milwaukee). We head back to the flower shop, order the flowers, and get on our way.

I should have realized that our day wasn't going to be smooth by about the second hour in. We had to stop for the bathroom about 11 times, I swear. Abby had to go like every hour! That may be a slight exaggeration but it was a lot. And it was like she was going NOW. We had to pull off the side of the freeway so she could poop! It was coming and it wasn't going to come in my car!

There was so much traffic. I have experienced that drive five times now and we've never had traffic like we did that day. It was insane. I was trying to make up some of our lost time with my awesome driving (read "speeding") but every time I started to cruise we hit more traffic.

We stopped for lunch and it took like 45 minutes to use the bathroom and order our food. Just order! We even ate it in the car. So we make it to Fort Wayne around 4:15pm (which quite frankly was due to my excessive speeding at times). We were due to show up at my rental house to sign the lease and have a look around. That worked out all fine in the end except Abby had fallen asleep and then woken up when we arrived with a wet car seat. That girl and her pee! :)

So we take off around 5pm to head to Milwaukee. It should only take about 5 hours now. But of course we get caught in a huge thunderstorm. It was raining so hard I could barely see. And about 5 minutes into it we hear a loud thud on the top of the car. I pull off into the only gas station around. All of the spots under the canopy (or whatever it's called) are taken so I park and hop out into the pouring rain and wind. The back lock to my cargo carrier is gone. Vanished. And the carrier is open. I can see our luggage and fan. Great. So I'm trying to figure out what happened, I'm soaked to the bone, the kids think we're going to die in the storm, and all I can think about is why did I flatiron my hair today? What a waste of time! Now look at me! I look like a drowned rat! Anyway, back to the cargo carrier. Lori bought a bunch of bungee cords. I try to get them on while she takes all four kids to the bathroom. I can't ask her to help to much because she can't climb on anything--she's seven months pregnant! So I get everything settled, I'm wet, a little crazed, and we head back onto the road.

The rest of the trip home was actually less eventful except our dinner sucked! We stopped at one of the travel plazas and the food was terrible. We arrived home about four hours later than we should have. It was the longest, worst, craziest drive home ever. Oh, and as we're about home Audrey announces, "Mom, there's gum stuck in my hair." Of course there is. That was the nice final cap on a really lousy day.

But I would still take that day to have all the other ones that we had. I just love our summer PA trips. I think I would cry if we couldn't have them anymore. We love you Aunt Carmella, Uncle John, and Great Grandma! And I love you Lori for letting me drive the whole time. :)