Disaster: Our Trip Home

Disaster is the only word I can think to describe our trip home.

It takes 14 hours to drive home from my parents house, so we divided the trip up over two days.  Friday went very smoothly.  We left in the late evening and the kiddos fell asleep for basically the entire ride.  Code Monkey (this is the new nickname for my hubby- I’ll explain soon!) drove the entire way until about 12:30am.  We stayed in a very nice hotel (thanks, honey!).

Unfortunately, Spunky decided to wake up at 12:30 and STAY awake up until 2:15am.  Then she woke up before 6:30!  Punky woke up a little bit later, and, since I wanted Code Monkey to be able to get some sleep, I took the kiddos down to breakfast.  Then a little bit later, we “explored” the hotel.  Punky loved this!  About 9:30, we all had breakfast with Daddy- breakfast #2 for the kids- and then we packed up to leave.

Everything started out fine.  We only had 7 and a 1/2 hour drive; so we took our time.

We stopped in an old town for a break and chance to get the kids out of the car.  Then we had to stop again to take Punky to the potty.  Then we stopped for lunch at a place with a playplace.

Then I started feeling sick (it must have been my lunch- fast food).

Then the road was covered in ice.

The car right in front of us slid on the ice, did a 180 and, literally, slid right in front of our car and crashed into the wall.  Less than a mile later, the truck with a trailer right in front of us slid into the other lane and almost crashed into another car.  Fortunately, he was able to right himself and keep going.

At the next exit, we pulled over and Code Monkey got into the driver’s seat.  I was shaking so badly I couldn’t even drive– I also didn’t feel well at that point.

We passed about 40 accidents or cars that went off the road.  Everyone on the road was driving very slowly, and I had to stop several times to get sick- not fun!  Punky had to go to the bathroom, too.  At one rest stop, he threw a temper tantrum on the dirty floor in the middle of the store.  That was not a happy moment.

At about 5:15, we decided to call it a day.  We tried to find a hotel.  There was a nicer hotel at the top of a VERY high hill, but I didn’t want to stay up there with the weather we were having.  So we went to the not-as-nice hotel down the road.  The room seemed decent enough, so we brought everything we needed inside.  It was freezing, and we turned on the heat, which DID NOT WORK.  Since the hotel staff never came to fix the problem, we decided to leave and ask for a refund (which they gave us).

The weather had begun to clear up and I just had an upset stomach, so we decided to press on.  My hubby drove the rest of the way home… very slowly and I kept drinking my Pepto.  We ended up stopping two more times: once for a bathroom/food stop and once for gas.

At about 11:30pm, we pulled into our driveway with two sleeping children in the backseat.  Punky stayed asleep and we were able to put him straight to bed, but Spunky woke up and was not happy about being put in her crib.  But just a minute or two later, the house was quiet and three very excited dogs jumped into bed with us- even Leo!

Fourteen hours after we started our 7 and a 1/2 hour drive, we were home!

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