For the last weekend before school, I decided that the Heathens and I needed a grand finale. So I made plans to take them to the Crayola Factory in Easton, PA. Since it's a four hour drive, I decided to drive Saturday and get a hotel room for the night. After visiting the Crayola Factory on Sunday, we would drive home and arrive in time for dinner, baths, and bed.
Friday, I started looking for a hotel room close to the Crayola Factory. EVERYTHING was booked! The Crayola Factory is close to a bunch of smaller universities - people are probably moving their kids into dorm rooms. After much searching, I located a hotel. It even had an indoor pool for the Heathens to spend Saturday evening - perfect!
Saturday, I put the Heathens into Louie the Land Yacht (the Asst. Zookeeper dubbed the Suburban). We headed east on the turnpike. There's a LOT of traffic headed east! I'm glad there's hardly any traffic on my side of the turnpike. Look at all the Penelec bucket trucks! They must be moving them between depots. Why else would there be more than 50 bucket trucks on the turnpike together?
After arriving at the hotel, the Heathens spent several hours in the pool. After watching movies and jumping on beds, we fell asleep around 10. Several times over the night, the wind and the rain woke me up. Wow! It's really raining out there! Listen to that wind!
In the morning, we headed downstairs to the continental breakfast. The place was packed with more than 50 people. They must all be moving kids into their dorms!
The Heathens wanted to sit on the sun porch for their breakfast, but the roof had leaked the night before. The sun porch was basically an indoor wading pool. Wow! What a storm that must have been!
We checked out and headed a little farther east to the Crayola Factory. We arrived to find it closed because there was no power. Heathen #2 was quite upset. I told him that I had seen a sign for Lost River Caverns one exit back on the highway and we would try there instead. How was I supposed to know there would be a storm and it would knock out the power? Sorry, kiddo! I didn't know!
Back one exit on the highway, we came across roads closed and cops in raincoats directing traffic. Wow! Must have been some storm!
We started dodging flooded roads, downed trees, and downed power lines around every corner. When we came across the first river that had overflowed its banks and flooded houses, it finally hit me: I drove my children into Hurricane Irene.
What should have been a 4 hour trip home took closer to 6 as we had to dodge flooding and trees across roads. The Heathens spent a great deal of time with their noses pressed to the windows looking at all the damage.
When the Asst. Zookeeper asked the Heathens how the trip was, they told him about everything they had seen. He looked at me and asked me where the Crayola Factory was. After I told him that it is less than 10 miles from the New Jersey border, he just closed his eyes and shook his head at me.
Yes, I can be THAT oblivious to what is happening around me.
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| The Crayola Factory is located in the area colored hot pink for "extreme." |
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