Trip Home

Saturday we traveled up to the northwest corner of our state to visit family. It was exciting to get out after being somewhat stuck in the house for the past couple of weeks as Buddy continues to recover from hip replacement surgery.

The weather was beautiful, leaves are beginning to turn colors, there was a cool breeze. Perfect time to get out and about. After packing the car you'd think I was traveling with a new baby...you remember those days when you thought you'd have to take EVERYTHING. But we had a couple of coolers, a walker, chairs, change of clothes....did I remember the pain pills?? Pillow?? Throw??? Ice water to drink?? Ok, finally we had everything Buddy could possibly need. We were OFF on an adventure. A stop for gas...yes, after worry about that, finding gas wasn't a problem.

We had a wonderful time visiting with our son and daughter in law at her parent's home. They are our cruise buddies and will be our neighbors eventually whenever we get to build. It was brunswick stew cooking time and I mean gallons of stew bubbling in a big black pot over an open fire in the yard. Yum. A pork loin roasted away in the smoker too. The granddaughter's MoRo and Dabby Do were also on hand along with their cousin and her parents.

While the girls played in the yard, we sat outside and talked and visited. Just like the "good old days". Dinner was great...so good in fact, we couldn't even eat any of the banana pudding I made and bought our portion back home to eat later.

We took a few minutes to visit our property next door and check out the new gate. After opening it up we drove back to the end of the drive, cut off the car and just sat there. Silence.
But unfortunately, home is still about 90 miles away so we got packed back up and headed there.

Now, I'm not too fond of driving at night. Buddy usually does most of the driving but we made good time and I didn't have any problems. The roads are great and for the most part, traffic was light....that is, until we got back to the big city. Buddy took a pain pill and relaxed.

The perimeter around our city is always crazy and I was glad to see the turn off onto the highway leading to our part of town. Finally we were at the exit lane and I was able to get over. I even relaxed a little...after all, we were on the home stretch. That's when Buddy suddenly started yelling, "watch out, watch out!!" I had been looking at the two cars along the emergency lane and when he yelled I realized what I was really seeing was an accident happening and a third car was crossways in my lane....with us heading straight for it. I hit the brakes but I knew that there was no way to stop in time before t-boning that car. Suddenly, I steered to the left and back to the right....we missed it somehow. Five seconds maybe and our lives would have been changed....killed maybe. But five seconds and we were around the wreck and alive and unhurt. I don't think I've ever been that close to having a wreck before. It was unnerving....I could hardly get my breath afterwards. Thank you God for sparing us.