MarknRobin Making Memories: A Rocky Start

After a wonderful, productive morning at Bible Study Fellowship (Have I told you how much I love BSF?), we finally pulled out of the driveway at about 2pm after some inevitable last minute preparations:)

Putting the camper on the truck a few days ago. It's harder than it looks!

Our new handy dandy storage that keeps essentials at hand:)

Our plan? Sleep near Niagara Falls, NY. . . a 6-7 hour drive. Four and a half hours later, guess where we were? Lost in Lansing. I kid you not! For those of you unfamiliar, that's less than a 2 hour drive from home! We had been sitting for 2 hours in a "parking lot" on I 96 occasionally inching forward among the semi trucks. I had a headache, but was pretty content reviewing my notes from BSF. Mark, on the other hand, has a real aversion to traffic jams and was not a "happy camper". We had no idea what was causing this interminable hold up until I finally called over to a trucker with his window down. He said there was a fatal accident up ahead. That certainly changes one's perspective. I was so thankful to be safe in our stationary vehicle, and prayed for the hurting family who's lives had been irrevocably changed forever.

Progressing at a snail's pace toward Lansing, we were finally diverted off the closed highway onto a crowded exit (and very busy street) somewhere on the outskirts of Lansing. Proceeding forward like lost sheep among the harried and set free drivers, we had no idea where we were headed and how to get pointed back in the right direction! Unfamiliar with the fine points of our new GPS, it was completely unhelpful and kept trying to send us back onto the closed highway :( Mark finally noticed a group of semis turning left up ahead, but being in the wrong lane on a busy street, we were forced to make some difficult maneuvers along uncharted side streets before we were again headed in what we hoped was the right direction! After further digression along some back country roads, we came upon a highway (halleluia!) and eventually figured out the route we should proceed upon:)

At that point, since I was curled up on the seat with a headache that had progressed to migraine status despite my meds (no puking thank God:), Mark sweetly offered to find a place to stop so I could lie down. But since I didn't have to drive, I was hoping to at least make it out of Michigan before stopping for the night! So on we drove, heading towards a dark, ominous looking sky filled with storm clouds . . . Fortunately we didn't get much more than a sprinkle before pulling into a Walmart parking lot over the Ohio border a few hours later (around 9:30pm). Mark parked in a nice spot next to a tree, and I climbed into bed.