It all started with last night (4th of July) at midnight (ok so it was 'technically' the 5th of July) Mr. B and his brother decided to order pizza for all of us hanging out at PawPaw & MawMaw's after lighting fireworks. I do have pics but they will have to be added in separate posts later as I'm still on the laptop at the moment.
So we all eat pizza and bread sticks about 12:30 am and after family leaves we (Mr. B, kids, & I) finally go to sleep at 1:30 am. When the alarm goes off 4 hours later at 5:30 am I peel my eyelids open to find out that I am SICK (nauseous/heartburn) from that darn pizza! Not a fun way to wake up and start the day.
After getting everyone ready and packed up we're in the car by 6:20 am, our first stop is the gas station to fill up and get some Pepto for my stomach. A few mins after leaving the gas station Boo announces that his stomach doesn't feel good and he receives Pepto as well.
Literally no more than 5 minutes into the ride (thankfully Bubby & Bea fell back asleep) Boo plugs in the car adapter to set up the portable DVD player and charge his ipod and it shorts out the car lighter fuse and fries the adapter! We pull into a gas station to change fuse and they do not sell what we need. We drive on to a truck stop where we obtain a fuse and a new adapter for the DVD player. We test the adaptor and it works so we FINALLY hit the road towards home at 7:30 am.
At 9:00 am Bea finally wakes up and we make a bathroom break. After getting the the car I start to set up the DVD player for her and Boo. I get it plugged in and playing for a whole 2 minutes before it dies. I unplugged it from the car adapter by the kids in the back and move it to the dashboard one to see if that helps. Not only does it NOT help but it starts smoking! I quickly unplug it and we are left with the sweet scent of electrical wires that have burned for quite awhile despite trying to air out the truck. Strike 2 with the DVD player. I now realize that this 12 hour journey will be one without a DVD player...sighing to myself I think this is gonna be one long ride. I didn't find out until we got home that the whole DVD player got fired as well! :( That was how I watch DVD's in my room hooked up to the TV, ugh now we're going to have to move items around to put a DVD player in there.
To my surprise the kids did great! What a relief to know that a DVD player is fun but not necessary. There was lots of singing and dancing from Bea in her seat, lots of the A-Z letter game, and lots of chit chat. When we were about 1 1/2 hours from home she was starting to get a bit tired of riding in the car, and truthfully I was too. We decided to take a break and stop at Applebee's for dinner. It was yummy and great to be out of the car!
Back on the road we're making good time and scheduled (by the GPS to be home by 5:30 pm). Then 20 mins after the Applebee's stop we hear "I need to go potty" from the back, darn all that soda. We make a pit stop in Calera, AL. As we're getting back into the car we notice a storm rolling in. This is great because it distracts the kids from the remaining ride home.
We get back onto the interstate and are noticing all the traffic towards B'Ham was backed up for a looooooong time. We were checking that out when the storm decided to descend upon us! This included intense rain that prevented us from seeing out the windshield, wind gusts that were knocking us all over the road, and lightning striking the ground right outside our windows. It was pretty amazing and freaky at the same time.
The windshield Mr. B was attempting to see out of
And then the grand finale appeared, funnel clouds coming down out a cloud cell in front of us! I quickly called my friend B, and asked if there were any severe warnings out. Nope, only for severe T-storm. Well apparently the clouds in front of us didn't know that! They would funnel down, pull back up, and funnel down again, it was amazing and erie at the same time! The kids were FREAKING out, and here we are just driving towards them. I guess anyone with a lick of common sense would've pulled over and not kept driving towards them but others on the Interstate were still moving forward as well so we ventured on. It was also moving to the left so my rationale was if a funnel did come all the way down into a tornado it would keep on moving to the left, right?! LOL!! You could see the part dropping down rotating quickly. I tried to capture some pictures (which will be in a separate, upcoming post) but it was hard trying to get them through the heavily rain blurred windshield, but I got a few. My friend B was insisting we were crazy but after we made it past the crazy funnel clouds I continued to check out the other clouds and there were NONE that were behaving like those clouds. The only time I have EVER seen clouds like that before is on the Discovery Channel! I teased Mr. B about his past remarks on how fun it would be to be a storm chaser, he said "Yeah but I didn't want to be the driver!" LOL! I guess it takes all the fun out of it driving your family through the storm.
Attempt #1 at catching a pic of one of the funnel clouds, it was hard because they were rotating so quickly and it kept dropping down and sucking back up and dropping down again! The craziest one was a big drop down with 2 spouts off it, one on each side! Wish I would've caught that one! It's hard to talk on the cell, take pics, and see 'through' the rain at the same time!
Attempt #2 at catching a pic of the funnel cloud
Bea's take on the funnel cloud experience
Boo & Bubby expressing how they felt about the funnel clouds
After the longest drive in our lives from B'ham, Mr. B was finally able to release his death grip from the wheel and be escorted back to our hometown by another milder storm. Sure enough as we pull in the driveway the lightning is going off like crazy. Thankfully it blew through quickly and we were able to unload the car and go pick up Mac from a friends, where he stayed while we were gone.
The storm that escorted us home
(See all the backed up traffic on the left?)
It was a long, exhausting, tiring, and yet exciting day. We're glad to be home but not glad to enter back into the 'real world' just yet. Thankfully Mr. B is off today so we can get unpacked and all our errands ran.
