We could not seem to get our schedules right on the drive though. You would think that we would travel for 2 or 3 hours, stop, hit the bathroom, get gas, walk the oldsters and young ones and then get on the road again. Oh, no. If we had to stop for a human to pee, I usually went along just in case. The oldsters seemed to have to go more often, about every hour and a half. My truck sucked gas as did the moving van. We'd stop for gas for the truck but then an hour later we had to stop for the moving van. There was no rhyme or reason and seemed like we had to stop every hour or so. We had a spot picked out in S. IN to stop for an hour and walk everyone, but that was a long way off. And going 55 miles per hour.
We were just getting into Indianapolis and about to get on the bypass when Jerry called me.
"We have to stop."
"Why? We just stopped a half hour ago!"
"Well, Hayley is stuck."
"What do you mean, stuck? How could she get stuck? She's riding in the front seat of the moving van for God's sake!"
"She's gotten wedged under the seat."
"Can't she stay there til we get out of town?"
"No, she's starting to panic."
Hayley just turned 15 years old before we left on this trip. Although she is in pretty good health, well, she can't hear at all anymore and her sight isn't great but she manages pretty darn well. And we were worried about her thrashing around and hurting her back. So I dutifully pulled off the road at the next exit and began to search for a parking lot. The only one I could find was a gas station with a drive thru Subway. And hardly anywhere for a huge moving van. So I pulled up as far as I could, and jumped out to assist Jerry.
Did he stay stuck? She was WEDGED in. I honestly thought we would have to take the seat out. She'd gotten back in and wrapped around and I don't even know how to describe it but the closest I can come to is a child who fell down a narrow well. How to get her out? Between Jerry and I (we handed the dogs off to Erin who held them while we decided whether or not to find an acetylene torch) crawling under the seat, placing her feet here or there, moving her head, etc, we finally freed the old lady dog. I took her for a short walk to let her pee and to see her gait to be sure she hadn't hurt herself. Packed everyone back up and on the road again, another 20 minutes blown. We got thru Indy just fine, and then headed for Louisville.
We stopped at the planned rest area and tried to just walk everyone and hang out for a few minutes. Then back on the road. It was getting on in the afternoon then, and although it would normally take me about 3 1/2 hours to get to the house from the south side of Indy, I knew we still had a drive ahead of us. But we were so close.
As we approached Kentucky, Jerry called again and said he had to pull off and find a bathroom. Not a problem. And then we ran straight into a huge traffic jam with us in the far left lane and no way to get to the right side. And we sat. And noodged ahead a little bit. And then sat some more. Trying to not think of water, which we were going to go over, the big river, I think it is the Ohio River, into Kentucky. Apparently there had been a big accident in front of us. After another hour wasted, the traffic picked up a little bit. And then we were in Louisville! Jerry was impressed, as we go right past the airport, the ball park and other interesting sites. And Louisville has an awesome highway system, one side of the highway has something like 7 lanes. So traffic flows well. And in 10 min, we were leaving Louisville behind. The sun was starting to get low and we got something for dinner and kept going. At one point I must have speeded up because Jerry was lagging way behind. I couldn't figure out why until he told me the next day that he could really only do 55 mph. I thought he could go faster but that the engine in his van was still having oil light problems. We arrived at Cave City and got off the highway. Only another hour! Or maybe....more. OK, more. We got to the next big highway and I got lost in town and managed to go west instead of east. When I realized my mistake, I was able to turn around at the next exit. Now bear in mind at this point I'd only been to the house twice before, the first time with the realtor and the second time during daylight. And now it was dark. We pressed on.
And finally, FINALLY, we made it. It's tricky approaching our house at night, the roads are curvy and very hilly and if you miss the driveway, well there are no shoulders in Kentucky. So you have to go three miles to the next intersection and turn around because you can't use a driveway, backing out on our road is an invitation to meet Jesus prematurely. And Jerry's driving a 100 foot long moving van. So I slow way down, look and look and look and damn it, there goes the driveway! I immediately slam on the brakes and turn on the turn signal and Jerry gets the message. And I am actually able to turn around on one of the few bits of shoulder in Kentucky which is in front of our land.
Next chapter: What we found at the house....stay tuned.
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