Adventure

This is what my road looked like last Sept. I couldn't go to work that day so I went around and took a lot of pictures.
The reason I posted this picture is to show you how it must have looked Friday while I was at work. When I come home from work I come in on the other side and at 1am I came home and found two big "Road Closed" signs covering the road. I knew that the road was clear by then because the rain had stopped hours before this but I couldn't get around the signs. I parked my car facing the road and walked around the signs to make sure the road wasn't flooded but I was on a hill and it was pitch black once I got out of my cars head lights so I chickened out, turned around and went back to the car. Since I had forgotten to fill my gas tank before leaving town I only had a quarter of a tank and we don't have many gas stations near that are open in the middle of the night. I decided I would sleep in my car and when daylight woke me up I would be able to get through. It wasn't cold and I had a jacket so everything should be good. Trying to sleep in the front seat wasn't good so I decided to try the back seat. I remembered I had a blanket in the trunk so I got that to use as a pillow. Turned out it smelled slightly of gasoline from when I got gas for the lawnmower. I still used it. It wasn't strong enough to give me a headache and I was so darn tired. Still it was very hard to get to sleep and then the wind kicked up and that didn't help me sleep at all. Finally I think I did sleep for about an hour. I woke up at around 3am and I was cold and I had to pee. I went back to the front seat and turned the car on and the heater. Now, what am I going to do? I am not going to pee at the side of the road. For one thing it was cold now and another thing I would probably end up rolling down the hill backwards, knocking myself out or something and being there with my pants down when people started driving around. I'd be the laughing stock of the county. Nope not going to do that.

So, I had to figure out where I could get gas and what direction I could go after that to get home. I had two options. North or South. Either way will take me at least 2 hours to get home. Mind you, I'm only 5 minutes from home where I am parked right now but I'm afraid to try to move the road signs. They look heavy and there are big sand bags on them to hold them down.

I decide to go South back to the town I work in to get gas at the 24 hour station. I drive about 20 miles and find that the road is closed because of something to do with a couple of BIG trucks. The cop tells me I have to go North. He also said he didn't have a problem with me making a U turn in the middle of the highway. Thank you very much. So I make the U and drive about 15 miles to the only 24 hour gas station on the way home in that direction. The price of gas was 10 cents a gallon more than at the town I wanted to get gas at!! That is a BIG difference! Before I got gas I went running in to the station to use the restroom. The women's door was shut so I knocked on it and a lady said she'd be out in a minute. Then I heard a lot of toilet paper rolling. And then a lot more. I realized that I really didn't want to follow her. I asked the guy working there if I could use the men's room and he said sure but there shouldn't be anyone in the women's and I told him there was and he looked at me really funny. I used the men's room and when I got done I saw she was still in there. I never did see her come out but I wasn't waiting around. I'm just glad that I didn't wait for her.

I got gas and drove off and made it home at around 5am. My best friend told me she passed me on the road and thought it was me. She thought I must have spent the night at a friends house. Nope. Stupid me just drove all night long. I got into bed at around 5:30 and got up at 9am to go back to work. I was surprised at how well I did at work with so little sleep. When people at work asked me how I got home I just told them I went the long way. I didn't tell them the whole story.

So, next time what will I do? Will I just go ahead and drive the long way or will I try to move the signs? I don't know. I really am a big chicken.

Missouri Tornadoes

I'm going to apologise right away for the bad pictures but I had to take them from my car. Lucky for me the traffic was very congested so we were moving slowly. I was only able to point and shoot though as we were crawling along and I was driving and alone. These are new very expensive homes across from the Jim Robertson's new car dealership.

I don't know how many houses were destroyed or damaged but it is very bad. The utility company was putting up new posts and lines but I was too close to be able to get a good picture. I guess I could have tried to take pictures out of my windshield but it is so dirty I didn't think anything would have showed but the dirt.

These are cars from the dealership. Their windows are broken out. They had been blown all out into the road but when I got there they had be moved back to the lot.

Their sign is gone and one of their lights is leaning.

A lot of Maytag's windows were blown out and the power lines are laying down in their parking lot.

They are saying that we lost 3 people in this storm and when I went to Wal-Mart I saw quite a few tears. I am just so very thankful that it missed me and my friends and family and my thoughts and prayers go out to all that have been involved in this tragedy.

I drove by my work and everything looks normal there and the parking lot is full so I still have a job!

Pictures of the Graduation

Daughter-in-law receiving her diploma.

Son receiving his diploma.

Son, his girlfriend and two of his three sons from his first marriage. The youngest boy ran to the car so he could play his video game. The wind was blowing really hard and big rain drops were falling.

Daughter-in-law trying hard to keep her hat on for the picture.

We gave up after this picture. We had just found out that there might have been a tornado in the town I work in and the storm might be coming towards us. It didn't and I was able to drive the boys home safely.

Congratulations Graduates!

My son and DIL are both Graduating tonight from the same college and I am so excited for them. Just to be a little confusing this is not a married couple. This is my oldest son who is engaged to be married on June 6 and my DIL that is married to my youngest son. I don't know how it worked out but both of them decided to take classes at the same time. These are not young kids so I was very surprised when they told me what they were up to two years ago. I'm also embarrassed to admit that I really wondered if they would be able to keep up with the homework and their families but they did it and tonight we celebrate!

I'll be picking up my son's 3 sons and taking them up there as a surprise. He was told that the boys' mother said they couldn't come. I hope he isn't too worked up about it. I can just imagine what he is saying and thinking about her. All I can say is that it wasn't my idea to tell him that. I am just the delivery person.

I'm taking presents and after I drop the boys off I will be picking up a cake and I suppose I should get ice cream too. I know it isn't a birthday but you can't have cake without ice cream. Can you? It just doesn't seem right.

Ok, I'll post this now because I need to get showered and dressed. I'll be taking my camera and hope to get some good pictures.

Bye

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope you all have a very nice Mother's Day!

I'll be working so let me know what I missed. OK?

Love to you all!

Flower day trip

These flowers were planted into a brick wall that had spaces for dirt. I had this plant in my yard but when I had my hysterectomy last year a friend that helped me out with my mowing did it in. It really isn't her fault. The grass was so overgrown that she didn't see it until it was too late. I'm not a very good gardener.

I don't know what kind of flowers these are but they are really pretty. Does anyone know?

These were really beautiful.

Can you see the little blue flowers? I love blue flowers.

My friends and I went on a day trip on a bus and I got to take pictures of some very pretty flowers. It was really nice to be able to spend the day with my friends.

We got to ride a bus for 4 hours one way and that was ....well.... interesting might be the word. Or maybe .... adventurous. Well, how about kind of scary?

On the way down there we stopped half way and got something to eat. When we got back on the bus my friend I was sitting next to and I somehow lost our seat. We couldn't figure out what happened. We knew who we were sitting in front of but there were a couple of women sitting where we should have been sitting. We stopped for a couple seconds trying to figure out what happened. Looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and went to sit in the back of the bus where the only open seats were. We had been sitting on the left side with me against the window. This time we sat on the right side of the bus with my friend against the window. Other people were watching us and wondering why we went back there to sit. They didn't realize our seats were taken. We weren't mad, just confused. I thought maybe the woman in the back sat one seat up and so that had everyone else going up a seat. No problem.

So, now we are on the right side of the bus, my friend against the window. We are looking out the window and there is a big truck with a load of blue pipes on the back and the back of the bus is weaving back and forth. It looks like we are getting really, really close to the truck and my friend tells me that we have to move to the other side of the bus. RIGHT NOW! I jumped up and sat in the seat across the isle and this time I am against the window. I liked it a lot better. She had gotten so scared she was almost in a panic. When we arrived at our destination the others told us that they saw the bus was moving a lot and they were sure it was worse in the back where we were but they were shocked when they looked back and we had been bounced across the isle.

I watched others come down the isle to use the restroom and was so grateful that I didn't need to. I don't ever remember using a restroom on a bus and with the way this one was swaying all over the place I didn't think this trip would be the time to test it out. My luck didn't hold out though on the trip back home.

As soon as we got done eating our sack lunch the bus pulled up and I didn't have time to go to the rest room before getting on the bus. I knew we were going to be driving at least 4 hours and I was doomed. My friend and I sat in separate seats but still in the back. For some reason our original seats didn't open up.

I tried to sleep as much as I could to try to keep out of the rocking restroom. It didn't work. I kept waking up and thinking about getting up but I would talk myself out of it. Finally I couldn't wait any longer. I stood up and almost fell back into my seat but I caught myself and reached the door. I couldn't find the light but there was some light coming in from somewhere. I saw the water and whatever in the pot and started worrying about it sloshing up on me. YUCK! I really, really had to go so I had to be brave. When I finally get my self situated I see that I didn't get the door latched! I tried to pull it but it wouldn't shut. I was bouncing around so much I was afraid that if I held on to the door I would just end up opening it so I left it alone. I couldn't even relax to pee from bouncing around and watching the door. Finally I was done and then had the worry of if I was going to be fully clothed when the door opened. I was being thrown around so much I had an awful time trying to keep from bouncing onto the door as I pulled my pants up and tried to zip them. That is not easy to do when bouncing off the walls. As I came out and was sitting down I told my friend "I never did find the light". She giggled. A few minutes later a lady from the front of the bus came down and when she came out of the restroom she said, word for word I shit you not...."I never did find the light"... if I hadn't just peed I would have peed my pants right then.

About 20 minutes later we pulled over where we had eaten in the morning. I couldn't believe that I all I had to do was wait for a few minutes and I could have used a stationary restroom! Then two ladies got up (the ones in our seats) and left the bus! It turns out that they gotten on the bus when we were there eating and that was why they were in our seats. They didn't know the seats were taken. Oh, by the way, the driver never turned the bus off and as soon as the ladies were gone we were driving again so it was a good thing I didn't wait.

I'm not planning on taking another long bus trip but to be honest I thought we were only going two hours away not four.