Are We There Yet?

Final Disneyland Post

I showed you all the photos from Disneyland (from my camera anyhow). If Eric has more photos, I can always share those later, because drawing out the Disneyland experience is fun for everyone!! Right?

As I have mentioned in the last three posts, it was raining on and off all day. By about 4 in the afternoon, it started raining steadily. We got colder and colder. We stood in line to ride Space Mountain, and Hudson gave up. He fell asleep in my arms from exhaustion and being cold. Holding 35 pounds of little boy for 45 minutes made my arms soooooo sore.

It rained the entire time we were in line. Fun. We finally got on the ride, Hudson included, and then when it was over, we decided it was time to start heading for home. It was 6ish by this point.

We had a little last minute shopping to do, we caught the tram back to the car, changed in the car, found a McDonald's, and headed for the freeway.

That's when things got crazy and scary.

We called Eric's dad to let him know we were on the way home, and he informed us that the Grapevine (the big mountain pass) was probably going to close. Um, excuse me? How in the heck were we supposed to get home? We kept on driving through the heavy rain on the L.A. freeways until we were about 15 miles from entering the Grapevine and saw signs about the closure.

I was already in a panic because of the rain. I HATE driving or even riding in the rain. It just scares me. I was pressed up against my window taking deep breaths and whispering Hail Mary's.

We diverted to another freeway to the east. We stopped to get gas, soda, and candy. I needed something to keep from screaming. I was already crying enough silent tears as it was.

As we started driving on Hwy 58 over the Tehachapi Mountains, the rain suddenly turned to snow. It was so pretty, but so freaky. The thing that kept me semi-sane was constantly updating my facebook status. I figured if I died, at least people would know where I was! Okay, okay, I'm being a little dramatic, but I wasn't kidding about being scared.

We managed to keep driving...slowly. Then all traffic came to a halt. And we sat on a snowy, closed-down freeway for about 20-30 minutes. That didn't help my mental state.

Finally we started inching forward. We managed to make it to Bakersfield sometime after 11 p.m. The other side of the freeway had jack-knifed big rigs and stopped traffic for miles. We were lucky they opened our side up.

Once we got to Bakersfield, I was able to breathe a bit easier. We finally got home after 1 a.m, a far cry from getting home between 10 and 11 when we should have.

As frightened as I was, I was just happy to be home safe and sound. It was quite the ordeal that I am not anxious to repeat. Something fell on us the ENTIRE drive whether it was rain, hail, snow or sleet. Crazy California in March.

We got up to go to work on Monday morning, and that wasn't pretty at all! I'm amazed I didn't fall asleep teaching class!

And that is the conclusion of our Disneyland trip. Amazing family time. Horrible weather. God (and Eric!) got us home safely. For all the blessings, I am grateful!