Brayden had an especially tough time going to sleep and at 1:30am he was up again. Seems his sleep mat died at some point since we set up. What are the odds that 3 sleep mats die within weeks after having them for 4 years?! I guess we do inflate and deflate more than the average camper. Anyway, he was flat on the ground and angry.
The night before I'd checked the weather and knew there was a storm coming in the early morning so I checked again only to see it was about 90 minutes away. I checked to see if it was going to bring or follow any kind of cool front but it wasn't. So not only were we going to have to put on the rainfly and listen to a loud storm but we were going to be miserably hot in the process. I asked Brayden if he was up for just packing up and driving home now and all three kids answered, "Yes!"
So that's what we did. We packed up by moonlight and were driving out of the park at 2:20am. We filled up with gas and I told the kids to try to sleep now that we were in air conditioning. It was me and truckers on the road this morning.
I told the kids we would need to stop quite a bit because I was going to get tired and need to walk around and wake up. The adrenaline of packing up and escaping the storm had me wide awake until about 5am and a few miles into Louisiana. We stopped then to take a break and eat some breakfast. Cereal to the rescue again! I was feeling okay but I could tell my patience was thin already. This was going to be a long day.
We got back in the car and watched the sunrise as we moved across the state. I was relying on the cold air conditioning to keep me awake at this point so I knew it was time for me to stop and sleep. We weren't in any rush and it was simply unsafe to keep driving. Once we pulled into the rest stop I told the kids to be quiet and let me sleep for just a short time. A nice rain shower started and I was out within seconds. I woke up an hour later not even realizing I slept when Brayden opened the door for cool air. We all climbed out of the car to stretch a little and before we knew it we were back on the road again.
After we were well into Mississippi I needed gas and the kids found a Redbox nearby with movies they would watch so we were set for a few hours. We were all getting a little loopy by this point! I was tired of all of my music so every 40 minutes or so I would have to find a new radio station in the next town. We listened to all the decades of music from the 70s to today and sometimes I could even find an NPR station for a little while.
Once we made it into Alabama everyone perked up. They were excited about surprising Dave getting home a day early and they decided to send him a text with a picture of them at the Welcome to Florida sign. That last 45 minutes from Mobile seemed to take 2 hours but we finally made it!
In just a few more minutes we were home seeing animals, unpacking the car, and starting on the mountain of laundry. We all showered and I realized I must have scared a few people because my eyes were both so red I looked like I had pink eye in both!
Once Dave got home we had a quick dinner and walked over to the house for the grand tour. I hadn't seen it in person since they started the floors so I was blown away by how much they had accomplished. The kids begged Dave to sleep there so we all grabbed pillows and blankets and enjoyed our first night in the new house. Just don't tell the county!
We are thrilled to be back home and jumping back into life as usual. We have a long list of lessons learned that I will be posting in the next few days!!
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