Eh, it's "only" 12 hours

If you've been reading my blog, you know that I spent about two weeks in Indiana. It. was. fantastic! It wasn't even a bad drive. My friend Tricia and I have a running joke that you know you're a military wife, when you say "Oh, it's only a twelve hour drive". She and her husband were in California before coming to North Carolina so they had to endure a cross country drive. BIG kudos to them for that. We drive everywhere because, let's face it, plane tickets are expensive! Unless we can catch them at the right minute on the right day, we hardly ever fly anywhere. So when it was the time to make the trip back home, I got a book on tape from a good friend, also named Karen haha, and bit the bullet. The drive there was perfect! I left around ten in the morning. My outlook on things are that I can get up super early, drive tired and coffee dependent until I am forced to stop a hotel for the night. Or I could get a good amount of rest, eat a good breakfast, and leave when I'm fresh and ready for the day and if I have to stop then I do but if not I am good to drive the entire twelve hours in one shot. So I dropped Tricia off at the Raleigh airport around one and just made the trip back home from there. It was a beautiful drive through the mountains.

It was really funny because for a good couple of miles I hit terrible traffic out in the country. This sign really made me laugh, because I found myself saying "how much longer is this going on for" just before I saw the sign. I also took the time to stop when I needed to, and if I wanted to get a starbucks I stopped and got a darn starbucks! I was always that kid who had to stop an hour after the previous stop because " I didn't have to go then". So, it was nice driving by myself because I could stop as often as I wanted. I ended up getting into town around twelve thirty.


The drive back, however, wasn't so great. Mother nature was against me of course. It didn't rain at ALL until I got into the mountains. I absolutely hate driving in the rain. Yep, I am "that" person that if I have to put my windshield wipers on the highest setting I end up just pulling over.  I ended up adding two hours onto my trip. 

Then of course my dog is a chicken so as soon as the rain got bad I ended up with him laying like. He had a great set up in the back hatch with comfy blankets and goodies but still he sat here for at LEAST five hours. It was really cute....until he tried getting in the front seat.

Another thing that made the drive home terrible is that I had the pleasure to find out Buddy hates cops. Well, either that or it could just be strange men approaching my window at night. Either way, he was going crazy! And, by crazy I mean that he all but jumped out my window. Yep, that means I got pulled over. It was the same police car I saw a few miles back pulling over someone else. It's the end of the month, you know, they have to fill up their brownie points. Regardless, I knew I wasn't speeding so I was really curious to why the officer pulled me over. A little back story for a minute, I was using a borrowed GPS for this trip so I didn't have a mount for my window. Instead I just sat it on my lap and glanced down every now and then to see where I was going. Right before the officer pulled me over, I missed my initial exit so was glancing down a little more than I normally would since it was "recounting route". I got pulled over because he thought I was texting while driving because he just saw the glow of a screen. Of course the one time I didn't even have my phone near me, I was pulled over. After we got the fact that I wasn't texting out of the way he asked me how long I'd been driving. He asked me when he first got to my window where I was heading and where I was coming from. I say I'm heading to my house by Camp Lejeune and I was coming home from visiting my family in Indiana. So, I tell him at that point in time, I had been driving twelve hours and was only two and a half hours from my house. Apparently he was concerned by that statement so I had to endure the "follow the pin with your eyes" type of tests to make sure that I was safe to even be driving. I felt like asking if he would pay for a pet deposit at a hotel if he found that I wasn't safe to drive! But, I am trying the whole "being a lady" thing out so I kept my mouth shut. He eventually came back from his car with my warning ticket written out, gave me the "no messing with the gps while driving" speech and sent me on my way. It was stressful to say the least. That's all I need, is to tell Matthew that I got a ticket because the officer thought I was texting while driving. I think I was more upset because I was listening to The Help on CD and was cracking up laughing at a really funny part but the officer interrupted. I know, not a big deal, but at the time I was honestly upset about it! But God was watching out for me because even through the rain and me being pulled over, I made it home safely :)