The Turnpike Story

Today we drove home from my parents house....it took 8 hours. The trip from Indiana to Ebensburg took an hour because of snow and wind and coal trucks. So we weren't off to a good start. Livi only sleep a half hour but was pretty happy. She started to fuss a bit around the Blue Mountian exit of the turnpike and I could hear James' stomach growling so we stopped for lunch and a good stretch. We got back on the road around 12:50ish. As we neared the first tunnel there was a PennDot truck with a flashing sign that said "SLOW DOWN NOW...ACCIDENT AHEAD". So we obeyed the signs...but after the tunnel there wasn't an accident so we start to relax....then we saw the traffic. It was actually more of a parking lot. We stopped and I got in the back with Livi. About 20 min later we started to move and we thought...that wasn't too bad. Unfortunelty we only move about 10 yards were we stopped and spent the next 3 hours. I got cabin fever after about the 2 hour. James kept taking little trips up a nearby hill to see if anyone was moving. And we watched other people in there cars. Thankfully Livi enjoyed exploring the car, she took a little nap and was all in all happy to be with us. At one point we realized that my cell phone was MIA. So after some searching (including James looking under the car....in case the phone crawled out) we realized that it had slipped down into the space that the E-Brake comes out of. (I'm sure there is a technical term that I don't know). James' hand didn't fit so I reached in and was able to get it...I did leave a good bit of my hand behind. So I have battle scars and a good turnpike story. We are just so glad to be home. And I have never been so excited to see a bathroom in my life...except that on time at Joe and Kelly's but thats another story.

All in all it was a long day but we had a good time talking and laughing in the car. And we are so grateful that we weren't a few minutes ahead of the game. If the trip had gone better from Indiana to Ebensburg we very well might have been involved in the accident. Thank you Lord. Amazing how the things that are frustrating (snow, coal trucks) often are the things God uses to keep us from something much worse. I'm so glad we were all together and it wasn't just me in the car with Alivia...cabin fever would have set in much, much earlier.

So that was our Monday. Hope yours was much less eventful.