My family and I made it to PA on Sunday, around 3 in the afternoon. What does that mean and why should you care? Well, we left on early Saturday morning at 1:30. Normally the trip takes about 21 hours or so, but this trip was like any other we have ever taken. Let me set the scene up for you and then go into the details.
Picture this: 2 parents. One is driving and only slept a little on Friday night to "get him going" on our straight through no stopping to sleep trip. 4 kids. They all get along, quite well, but after awhile can get restless. 1 Yukon. Exactly like a suburban holds 9, but with all of our stuff, it felt like more. 1 trailer. Weighs the car down and holds all of our luggage and presents. No visibility out the back window.
Alright so here is what happened: Most of us slept through the morning, dad drove and we were on our way. We reached South Carolina in 8 hours, making pretty good time. We stop to eat. Get back on the road and sit in stop and go traffic for an hour. Then we hit snow. Lots and lots of snow. North Carolina was beautiful. Then we hit VIRGINIA! This is our most hated state, sorry Lindsey. It takes 5 hours or so to pass through. The scenery was lovely, but the roads were getting bad. After dinner, around 5:30, we get back on the road. We were in stop and go traffic for 4 hours.
*At this point you are probably saying, man that sounds awful, poor Eshelmans. WRONG!!!! There is so much more.*
We called our grandparents and said, we are about 5 hours away, expect us around 3 in the morning. O that we were so lucky. At around 11 the roads got exceptionally awful. I was texting Shaheen and asking her to pray because with a trailer and precious cargo, it was getting a little scary. Then we stopped. Complete stop in the middle of the interstate. Apparently a tractor trailer had jack-knifed about 1/4 mile in front of us. So, everyone, including us, turned off the cars and waited. Then as time wore on, people started to go to sleep. It was late so it's understandable.
Me, being the kind person that I am. I volunteered to be the look-out. I had slept ALL day so I said I would let my dad know when we started moving. He slept along with everyone else in the car. We turned on the car every hour or so, to let the heat run and thus warm our freezing little Florida bodies.
1 o'clock, no movement. 3 o'clock, nothing. 5:30, nothing. Okay, we've got to start moving soon. We've been sitting there for about 6 hours. 7 o'clock. Sunrise, someone comes to our door and says, try to make it on the shoulder of the road. The roads are CLEAR but all the truck drivers have fallen asleep and have been sleeping all night! Are you kidding me! We were stuck for so long. Almost 9 hours to be exact and everyone just didn't wake up. Come on.
So, we left. The roads were still awful and we found a place to eat breakfast around 10. Still in Virginia, the worst state ever in my humble opinion. Then we got back on the road and arrived around 3 in the afternoon.
What a trip! My family has now survived blizzard/snowy conditions. Yuck.
Sorry this is so long and I hoped you enjoyed my summary of our adventure. We will be telling this story for months to come. Ha. :)
Just a few statistics from our trip.
My mom figured out that we went 71 miles in 11 hours.
The average temperature was around 30 degrees, and we were sitting in the car...freezing. God bless heating in a car.
Number of layers I had on during the night: 1 shirt, 2 jackets, one blanket, gloves, socks and shoes. Lovely.
All in all though, praise God that we made it here safely and that we had fun doing it. I don't know if I could have made this trip with anyone else. Ask Shane about our "Let us move" song at 5:30 in the morning. (It's a variation of "Let it snow") He loved it.
