Trip to Texas

Sorry, I don't have any new pictures downloaded. I'll do that next time. Here is the update.

Monday, June 8, 2009 Around 10 am my brother, Adrian, called to tell me that our grandfather (Papa) died. This was not a surprise because he was 96 years old and had been in a nursing home for a while. I packed our bags real quick and we left at 10:30am. That was fast packing, it helped that all the laundry was done. We stopped at Target here in Highland Park so I could buy a laptop case (Billy borrowed mine). I also bought stuff to entertain the kids on the trip. We drove eight hours the first day. We were going to go a couple of hours longer to make it half way but there were storms. We were north of St. Louis and the clouds ahead looked very ominous. I turned on the radio and there was a tornado in such-and-such county but I didn't know what county we were in. The radio said there was a tornado between Troy and Edwardsville(?). I looked at the GPS and guess where I was? So, I took the next exit and we ran into a Cracker Barrel restaurant. Once the all clear was sounded we had some Chicken N' Dumplings. I heard that there were more storms south of St. Louis so we went next door and got a room at the Holiday Inn. The next morning we left the hotel at 6:45 am and drove until 8:30pm, finally arriving at Mom and Daddy's house. Mom and I went to Walmart at 1am so that she could get a dress and I could get some shoes. The next day we went to the funeral and then had to drive 3 1/2 hours south to the burial. On the way home we were about 20 minutes from my parents' house and my sister-in-law called and said not to go any farther. She said there was a tornado warning. Mom wanted to keep going but Daddy and I didn't think it was safe. We went to a Walmart and I had to walk in bare footed and buy a very ugly pair of flip flops. We waited about an hour and then headed out. There were trees down everywhere the whole way home. We even saw a truck in the ditch. My aunt and uncle were caught in the tornado and had a very interesting account of it. The rest of the time there was less eventful thankfully. I got to go to Greenville and saw most of our friends but missed a few, too. We left Tuesday morning at 7am. We drove all the way to Marion, Illinois and stopped at 6pm. Billy's sister, Donna, lives in Marion so she joined us for dinner and then we got a hotel. The air conditioner went out in the van right after we crossed into Illinois. I am so glad it made it that far because it was so hot in Texas. The weather was perfect in Illinois so no a/c wasn't that big a deal. We got home about 1pm on Wednesday. The trip should actually be three days and I made it in a day and a half. I wasn't speeding but I didn't stop much either and we ate in the van. When I told Billy he said "You hauled butt!" So, today we cleaned the house, did all the laundry, cleaned the van, paid the bills, bought groceries, and still had time to sit on the porch with a friend and a cup of coffee. Tomorrow will be rest and relaxation or reorganize the garage, I haven't decided yet.