TRAVELIN

We are traveling in a caravan. Sons 1&2 insisted they wanted a road trip, an adventure of sorts so we are at this moment following son 1 who has son 3 in his car while son 2 drives mine. Might I just say that I AM NOT a good passenger, especially when the driver is an overconfident 17 year old that feels that his whole year of driving experience is monumental and has no fear of anything. Please say a little prayer for me that 1) we arrive safely..2) that we arrive safely before I have to smack the snot into submission and 3) the bottle of wine that my friend gave me for my birthday doesn’t break before we reach our destination. I am not even a wine drinker but what the hell, after the first glass I won't care J. We did have an interesting experience last night. When we were going through Winston-Salem, we missed our exit for the next highway we were to take so we hit the next exit to turn around and backtrack ever so slightly to the previous exit….wellllll, we landed in a very, shall we say, TERRIFYING area? I have seen my share of bad areas in cities before but never before have I actually had a RAT meander across the street in front of me. Yes, a real rat, long tail and all. After an initial ewwwwww, I managed to laugh. We have walkie talkies between the two cars so I was trying to calm down son1 (who was actually the one that took the wrong turn). He is a very bright type A guy with a bit of neurotic paranoid when he is presented with the unfamiliar—he needs order and structure to not get rattled). Anyway, we finally got turned around in an incredibly seedy area with some incredibly unsavory characters looking at us like a bunch of lost people from Ohio (oh, yeah, we were) and got back on the road. About 30 miles later we decided to stop for the night and found a place that looked clean and decent. I related the adventure to the desk girl and she looked and me and in her wonderful slow southern drawl said “Oh honey, I am so sorry. That is NOT an area you want to get lost!” She then went on to tell me that one of the reasons the unsavory guys were milling around is that a lot of people get messed up with the way the exits are there and when some poor unsuspecting saps like us roll through the gentlemen step out in front of your car to get you to stop so you won't hit them then they pull out some darling little weapons and ROB you. She literally said “Usually the only way to avoid gittin robbed is to hit them with yall’s car”…she honestly said that with a serious face! One more adventure for the family memory book. We will be at our final destination later today and I will let you know if we manage to have any more little bits of excitement along the way…..