T-4 Days

Today my family went to Damascus, VA to ride on the Creeper Trail for Dad's birthday. Yes, I know this makes us all sound like pedophiles. It's a 14 mile ride downhill (which is fantastic) through parts of the National Forest and it was absolutely beautiful.

Until we got caught in a flash flood.

This would be more amusing had the forecast been for clear skies. No, dear reader. The Weather Channel very clearly alerted us that an afternoon thunderstorm was certain to strike the area. Because my family never has normal outings (last year we went canoeing and all of us flipped out on placid water) we decided to go anyway.

What the Weather Channel didn't say was that we were going to be in an absolute deluge, complete with spattering hail.

It began raining around mile seven after we had eaten lunch at the halfway point, and mom commented that the clouds behind us made the sky look "just like tornada alley!!". The drizzle wasn't bad at first, but the monsoon that followed was blinding. The trail flooded - there were several places where we biked through water about a half a foot deep - and it was raining so hard dad and I had to keep stopping to adjust our contact lenses so they wouldn't fall out of our eyes. The situation became even more comical when mom made me get off the bike and get under a tree because "bikes are made of metal" and I could be struck by lightening! By this point all we could do was laugh - mom had mud running down her face and neck and her legs were completely black. By the time we got back to the car all of us were completely covered with it. I mean completely. I had to shampoo my hair twice when we got home and put on my glasses so I could get the dirt out of my eyes.

Needless to say it was a good adventure. Spending time with the family is never boring for sure - and on the ride home I couldn't help but think about how cool it is that we can do something like that together and laugh about it afterwards. My family is fun, especially when we also get to stop for coffee :)

I can't believe DYA is almost here! We're having another family adventure tomorrow while dad is on vacation (maybe canoeing again? oh dear...) and I have a nine-hour shift at work Wednesday. Thursday I will pack and prepare to leave early Friday morning for the most wonderful place in the world!!

I am so excited about making dinosaur door tags for my residents. They are going to be AWESOME.