Part 2 - Family Adventure Treasure Tale: Knocking on Danger's Door

(In Part 1 I shared a little bit about the opportunities of life that led up to us taking this trip - make sure you read about that and listen for more details about the adventure on my podcast, Healthy Mom Crazy Life!)

The notice was short, but the impulse was strong - so we went for it!

Adventure.

Spontaneity.

Fun.

New Experiences,

even some Danger,

but most of all, Memories.

A week ago, my two boys (Adam age 11 and Brett age 6) and I got back from a whirlwind trip out west; 1 week, 6 different states, and 3000 miles - whew!

Here’s how our road trip began…

We didn't hit the road until 3:30 Monday afternoon and that meant we were going to have to stay focused to get some miles behind us. Let’s go!

Although taking the northerly route through North Dakota to our Montana destination was an hour shorter, I decided to take the southerly route through South Dakota instead, opting for the opportunity to visit some classic family vacation destinations as we chased the setting sun. ☀️

The interstate is a quick way to put miles behind us and it wasn’t long before both Wisconsin and Minnesota were in our rearview mirror and we passed into South Dakota.We hadn't traveled too many miles into our new state though when the sky began to turn prematurely dark. Initially just off into the distance were the dark clouds and the flickers of lightning, then slowly but surely those dark clouds moved closer and took on a more ominous glare. The sprinkles began. The boys pointed out the lightening I had seen some ten minutes before.

This wasn’t anything we hadn’t seen before, so we keep driving but had a feeling this won’t be “it” for our precipitation experience today. I tell the boys we’ll be fine, we've seen lots of rain before.

The rain picked up, the wind quickened, the sky darkened more. Severe Thunderstorm Watch. Well shoot.

Again, not anything I haven’t seen before. I typically prefer to not be driving during down the interstate while my car was going through the car wash though . . .

It wasn’t long before the rain upped its game and the windshield wipers advanced to a 100% workload. Severe Thunderstorm Warning. The boys start to get worried, the rocking wind and aggressive water bath were starting to be a bit much, and I agreed.

It’s tough when you’re traveling - you don’t know exactly where you are in relation to all the surrounding towns and you don’t know the layout of the counties, so as you hear the updates on the radio, a lot of that information isn’t helpful as you are driving through new lands. Your best hope is to look at the radar’s projection and try to zoom in well enough on that dynamic system and hope you’re going to hit the gaps and the green - light green if you’re really lucky.

I decided to pull over in Mitchell, SD to take a closer look at the radar. We pulled under the canopy covering the gas pumps; rained pummeled the high-looming covering. I brought up the weather forecast. Severe Thunderstorm Warning and the radar looked like an ugly Christmas sweater - the mixtures of light green, dark green were quickly overlooked by the shades of red smearing the screen. The string of precipitation was long and was easily going to last all night long.

Should we stay or should we go now?

Stay tuned for the next blog and check out my podcast (link at the top) to find out what unbelievably ends up happening . . .

Brianne ❤️