Travel

I will have pictures to add soon, but I wanted to fill you all in on where we are and how we are doing. We left Naples Tuesday morning and made amazing time to Gainesville, FL. We stopped at Starbucks for the promised reward (Mom's, as well as the kids!). While we were in line at the drive thru, the wind picked up and a bolt of lightening streaked across the sky, followed immediately by a sonic boom! I kid you not! In case you don't know, I have a serious phobia about driving in the rain. (I'm going to unpack that for you later). Seriously, my heart begins to pound and I get short of breath. I looked at the black sky and I began to pray. The radio said that a severe storm was moving across several Flordia counties. Since we could hear the announcement, and considering the look of the sky, I made an educated guess that we were in the affected area. I also asked the kid that worked at Starbucks what county we were in. I could see clear skies in the direction we were headed, so I decided to go for it. As soon as I drove onto the on ramp I knew that was a very bad decision. The rain was pounding and the huge trucks were bearing down. I could not see a thing! My heart rate was up higher than it has been in a very long time. I prayed harder, yelled at the kids for talking, and exited off the very next ramp. I'm not kidding, I would have spent the night four hours from home before I would have gotten back on the interstate. Instead we opted for a Sonny's BBQ restaurant and we sat out the storm over bbq chicken! It was pretty violent, and we lost an hour and a half. Once we got back on the road, we had smooth sailing all the way to Atlanta. Stan was in Atlanta on business, so we decided to spend the night with him and head to Birmingham the next morning.

So, here we are. We have attended parts of the National Homeschool Speech and Debate Tournament, and today we spent the afternoon at Oak Mountain. I will write about both of those things later.

First, I want to fill you in on the counseling session I had in the car with myself and Joshua and Bryce. I think I figured out the root of my driving in the rain phobia. I wonder if there is an official name for what I have. Let's see......rainaphobia, drivingrainaphobia, wetroadaphobia, any other ideas??? Anyway, listen to this. When I was a freshman in college, I went to school at the University of NC in Wilmington. If you have ever been to Wilmington, you know that it is a coastal city, with a huge metal bridge that crosses the Intercoastal Waterway. The bridge is the main way into the city. Now that we live in FL and I have driven over the Skyway Bridge, I know that there are much larger bridges than that one. At the time, it was one of the highest and longest ones I had ever driven over. One Sunday night I was headed back to school after spending the weekend at home. It was raining really hard - I don't remember any fear of it then. Half way over the bridge my windshield wipers quit working. Mid-swipe. I could not see anything and there was absolutely no way to pull over. The traffic was pretty heavy and I just knew I was going to have an accident. I had to roll down my window and drive with my head out the window, which did practically no good. I pulled over as soon as I got off the bridge and called my room mate to pick me up. I had totally forgotten about that experience until the other day when my kids were asking me why I was so freaked out about driving in the rain. All of a sudden it came back to me. I guess that is the root of my phobia. Maybe I should be a counselor. Now the problem is what to do about it. Hypnosis??? Just kidding.