1053.6 Miles to go

1053.6 miles to go-

I wanted to remember the night before we left for our big family vacation back in 2003. It was absolutely crazy and to journal this event was important! As we were packing and the boys came home from work we plugged in cell phones, digital cameras, our camcorder, had both washers and dryers going and the air conditioning running.

Suddenly, all the power went out, OVERLOAD!!! Everyone was like OH! NO! Then we heard a loud hissing noise and smelt gas. My husband pulled out the stove and their was a massive gas leak a hole the size of a nickle had broke through the fairly new coil. I wanted to get the kids out of the house... as we all got together to go out the door a storm hit right at that moment. Lightning was coming down all around us... I didn't know if it would be safer to go out or to stay in the house!!! I mean it would be like dashing through the lightning strikes.... Within minutes Scott had the gas turned off so we stayed in the house as he went off to the hardware store...
Soon the line was fixed but our power was still out and it didn't come on until the morning.. the storm knocked out the whole neighborhood!!!

Finally, around noon after catching up with the laundry and charging everything we left, heading for our big vacation. Sunny Florida here we come.. A week along the shores of Redington beach and a couple of days at Disney World!!! Now, as we drove thirty minutes into Illinois three tornadoes come out of the sky and headed towards home. It made us nervous but we were off and nothing was going to stop us!! The whole ride through Illinois and Tennessee we were next to storm chasers.. It was pretty awesome we had never seen real storm chasers, but we knew if we were that close to them something just might happen!!!! Eventually they turned off and we continued on our trip.... arriving safely!!

Journaling this event means much to us, since planning our vacation Scott would say "All I want is to see some great storms." We did!!! Before we left, as we drove and while along the coast from our condo. He actually caught three waterspouts on his camcorder coming our of the sky and recording people fleeing from the pier. We called Bay News 9 with the video footage they interviewed us, bought a copy of the tape and sent ten of us to the Florida Aquarium.

It was an event to remember!

When you don't have pictures of the event.... just journal it!!!