We woke up late because the night before, poor little Melody was coughing all night long, setting the tone for the whole rest of the day. Bryan woke me up at 8 and told me I needed to be in Florida by 3 in the afternoon. Ha ha, sure! No seriously, they are telling us we have to be there by 3 o’clock.
We traveled about 400 miles each day and the day went from 11:00 to 7 or 7:30. Now they are asking us to be there by 3:00? No way!
It probably would have been better if we got in earlier and you will see why in a bit. Ok, so after breakfast and our morning, packing, and reloading, we head for the coach. Everything’s fine with ours, but the coach and car next to us, had their drivers side mirror torn off while driving. OMG, I’m not kidding. I didn’t ask which was one was driving, but from the looks on the wife face, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t her.
So, we start hooking up the car. It went successfully and we were on the road by 11:00. I forgot to mention about last nights unhook. We had found a great spot to park. No stress right? Well not exactly. Lyric just reminded me of a little problem we had on day two. I was unhooking the car like always, and all of a sudden we noticed that the car was moving backwards. I hadn’t taken it out of neutral and the ground was obviously at a very slight incline. Lyric ran around the back of the car, rolling very slightly, but towards her as she goes around the back of the car. Im having a heart attack while she hops into the car and puts on the emergency brake. Crisis over, except the added adrenaline I didn’t need, that night.
Anyway, back to Day 3
Everything is going good, time for gas and the truck stop I picked is out of order! Really? Yes. No gas. So we ate lunch, walked Molly, moved on to the next truck stop. We did really good time actually of staying on the road. Unfortunately, I started getting really sleepy from listening to poor Melody cough all night. It wasn’t a problem till turning in to a rest area to close my eyes for a bit, and Lyric spilled her Strawberry Kiwi beer on herself. I felt really bad that I spilled it on her and would have shared what we spilled darn it!
Moving on, we Finally arrived to our destination. Of course, now it’s getting dark, and Chris Stockton failed to mention that there was construction everywhere, and No way to get turned at the place I needed to turn.
So I went up two streets where I felt I could safely turn in and hope to be able to turn around and come back out. This next part is not for the faint of heart!
I got told I can’t come in there. Really? I’m already in there. There was an island in the middle and a hut ahead. It had to be a 5 or 6 directions of cars coming and going, all now tied up and can’t move, because we were stuck. I wanted to unhook and they said no. The lot attendants told me I have room to turn around and they will help me. Ah, no they didn’t. They made it worse. They said just back up now. I said I can’t back up with the car behind. Cars are honking, people yelling at us. Coach is going no where at this point. Leave it to me to get myself in the worst possible position. So I jumped out. I’m going to unhook, I don’t care what anyone says, I don’t backup the coach with the car on. Smiling, doing my thing. A wonderful guy comes up (my travel Angel) and takes over the unhooking process, while I go get Lyric to move my car and follow, after we get out of this mess. Smiling and apologizing profusely. Lyric called Chris Stockton and told him where to meet us. Plan complete, so I thought. After we got the car unhooked, the coach starts moving forward slowly, so my Angel runs to hop in the coach and stop it before it would have run into a small boulder, which, if that didn’t stop it, it would have gone into a pond. I hopped into the coach with him and he got it out of there, so I could take it from there. I love that guy, who ever he is and would love to thank him personally again.
Well, that’s the first part of the story, then I pulled into where Chris Stockton was waiting for us. Unfortunately not much room to turn around in there either. I stopped to access and here comes Joe Driscol, the show operator. Shaking his head, he’s like what are you doing? I said I’m so sorry! This has been a nightmare. How lucky was I to have him there at that exact moment. My Angel #2. He knew who’s car was an obsticle to turning around. She came like lighting. At least at this point, I no longer have people honking and yelling because we are stuck in a back entrance of the hotel. Chris is my Angel #3 who successfully got the coach turned around and got it into its final resting place for the show. I couldn’t have gotten it into the spot anyway because somebody had to open the gate down the road. Ok now you can breathe.
Whew, typical hassle with the end of day stuff, with bags and kids and hotels, but thank God until Sunday, we are free from the coach. No dings, dents or scratches.
We can rest easy now! Except for watching two little girls who are so happy to be out of their car seats…