21 March 2009

Spring Break Day #1

Sarah here. For our spring break "vacation," we traveled with my family to visit my aunt and uncle who live in Lumberton, Texas. My aunt Joy is a photographer and my uncle Chris is the manager of a television station in Beaumont (about an hour north of Houston). They have three awesome kids, Jason who is 13, Walter, who is 11, and Ellie who is 8. They have a beautiful house in Lumberton (about 15 minutes from Beaumont) that they moved into last year right before Hurricane Ike hit. They had lived in Midland, Tx, but got transferred from there to Beaumont because of Chris' job.

All of day 1 consisted mostly of traveling. We left Wichita Falls at 8 am. We had a three car caravan: Jim and I in my car with my little sister Lexie and little brother Josh, my Mom's van with her driving, and the rest of the little kids (Zach, Alijah, and Charlie) and my aunt and uncle bringing up the rear in her car with my sister and her boyfriend Gary riding. It took us a total of eight hours to make the trip. 

You expect a trip to be a little longer because of the kids, but we had no idea what we were in for. Not even two hours into the trip, this is what I hear from the back seat:
Lexie: Ohhhhh SSSIIIICCCKKK!
Josh: crying
Sarah and/or Jim: What happened?
Lexie: I thought he sneezed, but he frowed (throwed said without front teeth) up.
Disgusting smells overtake my car immediately. I quickly take the next exit, with everyone following/wondering what was going on. Sweet Joshua is crying because he feels bad for making a mess, and feels bad, period. We get everything taken care of, cleaned up, changed clothes, and got back on the road. We stopped for lunch at a McDonald's in Corsicana. Of course the kids wanted to play so we stayed a little longer. Also, at this point, Jim downloaded Oregon Trail on my iPhone. It is awesome....totally worth $6. 

The next couple of hours of the trip were pretty uneventful. Joshua kept saying in his cute little voice, "Where are we go-wing?" or "Are we the-were yet?" or "Go faster Sawah." 

Woodville is where we were making our turn to head south again for Lumberton. We were at a stoplight, first in line, when a motorcycle is coming across in front of us, making a turn. Mid intersection, this little (or not so much little- he was a little fluffy) old man hits a slick patch in the road and tumbles off his bike. It was very scary to watch. I threw my gear in park, jumped out of my car, waved my mom and aunt in (who are both RNs) and run to the man. He had blood running down his head, stuff running out of his bike, and he was yelling at me to get him out of the road. I thought he was just embarrassed and stubborn, but it turns out that he had some unpaid tickets, didn't have a motorcycle driving license, and no insurance. Anyways, we pulled him up and got him to the side of the road, got his bike out of the middle of the road, and called 911. We pulled our cars into the McDonald's parking lot only to be blocked in by cop cars for about 20 minutes. I didn't think we were ever going go to get there.

But we did finally arrive. We ate the most delicious meal, hung out, and then went to bed. I was so ready for it!

2 comments:

Sarah said...

Wow, what a drive! I'm glad you made it there safely, though, and that the guy who fell off his bike didn't get hurt worse.

By the way, my little brother used to pronounce my name "Sawah" too. It's the cutest!

Unknown said...

My goodness! That's an eventful car trip... and not in a good way.

And, yes, I agree. $6 is totally worth a trip down memory lane... as long as your animals don't drown.