As I stated in the last entry, April had its share of highs and lows. The low came in the form of my half-brother, Michael, passing away suddenly from a freak electrical fire in his apartment. I got this news the day before the wedding rehearsal and obviously wanted to keep it close to my chest so it didn’t put a damper on all the goodwill surrounding the events.
It was an absolute shocker to hear and in retrospect, all of the wedding events were an excellent distraction to not immediately dwell on the gravity of the situation. I felt terrible for my Dad having to make sense of everything and deal with the loss of a child. Michael was 41, but all of us are still someone’s child no matter how old we are.
Unfortunately, seeing Benjamin at the wedding and horsing around with him that weekend was seen through an additional lens, one that I had never really thought about before nor do I care to repeat – what if something happened to my sweet little baby boy?
The babysitter we had at the wedding drove him home and I couldn’t wait to get her text to let us know that they made it safely. When I saw them off I actually played the terrible mind game of “what if…” What if they got in a car wreck? What if I didn’t put the car seat in properly? What if the sitter just kept driving to Mexico? That stuff will drive you absolutely nuts. My hope is that “the seal” isn’t broken” where any time I hear a news story involving a child that I launch into an anxiety spiral. Now I know where Moms get their worry-warty-ness.
Fast-forward to the end of the month where the Alexanders were embarking on their first real road trip to Tennessee for the memorial service. We’re talking 972 miles of memories in the making, especially on the trip back (wait for it).
The day before we leave I pick up the SUV we rented – a Nissan Rogue. I think it is called a Rogue because it stole all of the room an SUV should have inside and hid it somewhere. This thing is the perfect car for a high school girl and two of her 5’ tall friends, but that’s what we got.
Until, I get a call an hour later from my dad with some bittersweet news – he found a new owner for Schmax.
Yes friends, Schmax has been given a life upgrade. Some of you know Schmax and may have tracked Schmax’s descent from dog-child to simply house-dog. A dog and toddler are a tricky combo, especially the older the dog gets and the more rambunctious the toddler gets. The fact of the matter is that no matter how sweet your puppy is, he is still an animal with instincts that are impossible to fully domesticate. I dreaded the potential phone call from Emily that goes “something-something Schmax, something-something jugular vein, something-something emergency room…”
I had been saying my goodbyes to Schmax for the past 3-4 months trying to find the best possible home for him and we found it in Tennessee. A sweet woman who works with my Dad has acreage, other dogs and a passion for animals. Gone are the days where Schmax gets two 5-7 minutes walks from me, some kibble and sporadic petting sessions. He is now in Shangri-La.
This news did force an audible - there is ZERO chance of getting a pet crate in the Rogue unless I cut off the roof. $100 upgrade later we are set up with a P-I-M-P electric blue Explorer. And this was barely big enough to fit all of our stuff. I made the comment that we would be the worst missionaries, you’d think we were packing up to restart civilization after the great meteor hits.
The trip there was actually pretty pleasant – some purple mountain majesties, guilty pleasure road trip food and a chance for me to reflect while everyone else snoozed - something I rarely give my self these days. Visiting with family was great and they of course loved getting to see Benjamin in the flesh and not digitally over Skype.
We did some shooting, some pawn shopping, more eating and had some good hangout time against the backdrop of the real reason for the visit, which was the memorial. It was a nice ceremony with some tears and some laughs and it was a pleasant surprise to see how many people Michael had impacted in this small town.
Sadly the week flew by and it was time for us to hit the road on Saturday May 1st. Does that date stick out to anyone? That day was the beginning of the heaviest rainfall that the South has seen in 80 years. It gets better, or worse.
As we’re about to leave the storm was mentioned, but I usually dismiss parental warnings about weather. “C’mon old person, it’s just rain. Haven’t you seen water fall from the sky before.” The only thing I had on mind was driving as many miles as I could before having to stop for the night.
We’re on the road, the sun is out, and I’m in with the rhythm of the road - the “convoy” zone. Then right in the middle of careening through the Smoky mountains we drive into a pitch black wall of water – splat! The wipers are moving in perpetual motion and they were completely ineffective, even when I slowed down to 35 miles and drove with the hazards on. It seriously felt I was at the helm of a mini-submarine. I caved and pulled over to let the storm pass over us.
While stopped I searched the app store to see if there was a weather tracking app. If you have an iPhone download the Weather Channel’s free app IMMEDIATELY – satellite tracking refreshes every 3 minutes, it gives you GPS severe weather warnings and lists road outages. And did I mention that it is free?
With tech in hand, I see the storm is breaking a bit so we continue to head towards Nashville. The sun is now down (dang it!), people are hungry (dang it!) and more weather is on the way (dang it x 3!). I wanted to get to Memphis so I would only have to drive 8 hours the next day, now it meant that I would have like 12 – barf.
Let’s take a moment to talk about Benjamin’s road trip demeanor – all in all I give him a +B. He definitely succumbed to road malaise from time to time, but you try being strapped into a chair and sit on a mildly moist diaper for hours on end. I looked the other away on his snack and juice consumption, and we introduced the portable DVD player.
Soapbox: I liked road trips as a kid and loved playing games with the family. I have high aspirations of doing the same with Benjamin, but I recognized that we’re just not there yet with the whole speech give and take. So the DVDs would keep him happy as I chewed up mileage. I will, however, stand my ground that the DVD player is the dessert and family time is the meal on future trips.
Back to the road. We’re making awesome time 30 minutes outside of Nashville and it is barely raining, then we came across an eerie sight. Both sides of the highway were lined with 18-wheelers that had pulled over. Not 1 or 2, like 100 to 200 – it looked like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie where people don’t know where to go, they just know they need to get somewhere. Clearly the truckers know something we don’t and have CB’ed it to all of their buddies.
What they knew was that I-40 has been shut down for 60 exits due to flooding on the highway. 60 exits, that means at least 60 miles. Gulp. The highway patrol was forcing people to exit at Dickson and the post-apocalyptic vibe was strong here too – cars and trucks parked anywhere there was a spot to park. Like stragglers banding together to stave off an attack by “Marauders.”
In vain Emily and I hopped on our phones to call every hotel logo we could see from our car – like Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus there were no rooms at the end. Think, think, think. I pull up Google maps and see that there is a country highway that is the scenic route to get us to where we want to go. I gas up the Smurfmobile with a critical fill-up and off we go.
The rain comes in droves, I white knuckle drive behind a car that unbeknownst to them was my high-water guinea pig. I would watch their tires to see how high the water was splashing, and it kept getting higher and higher and higher. Now I feel like the big guy in Jurassic Park driving through the rainforest trying to escape. The wipers are practically smoking they’re moving so fast, Benjamin is starting to get restless and Emily is starting to worry.
It was no longer safe to be on any road and my weather map was showing nothing but intense patches of “red.” We come to a stoplight, I take a left toward a derelict gas station that at least had an awning for us to sit under. A pickup truck at the stoplight turned right and was instantly sitting in water up to its windshield.
On the outside, and I think Emily will attest to this, I was calm and collected trying to figure out the best course of action. On the inside I was wringing my hands rocking back and forth repeatedly muttering “oh boy, oh boy, oh boy…” The water was 2” high on our tires, then it came up to our rims, then the water rose higher than all of the sidewalk and parking partitions causing the water to come up to almost half of our rims – and the rain was a constant deluge. This gas station was no longer the place to be.
Thank the Lord for my iPhone and 4-bar AT&T service during this maelstrom. I was able to determine where we were (Waverly, TN) and every major landmark or retailer (this gas station, a McDonalds, a grocery store and what’s this… a hospital!) My instincts told me that a hospital means infrastructure, back up generators and obvious medical care should something happen. Maybe it would even be on high ground.
Emily was… concerned. I told her that it was basically now or never for us to move, we drove over a precarious bridge with water splashing up to our windows, but we made it to Three Rivers Hospital (George Romero would be proud) which sat up on a hill like a heavenly sanctuary. When I put the car in park, I allowed myself to blink for the first time in 4 hours.
How to describe this hospital to you, especially on a dark and rainy night like this? You know in horror movies when the people escape the crazed killer, and make it to a rundown hospital thinking that everything is going to be okay, but the crazed killer cuts the power and stabs the only nurse on duty? You could have shot that movie here. Super creepy, but I am still thankful for its existence.
The rain is a constant, there is talk of tornado activity around us, and every road of this town is flooded. Folks, this is where we were going to spend the night. Emily was able to make a little backseat bed for Benjamin, and she was able to get a little sleep while I caught my third and fourth wind.
I attribute my ability to stay awake and focused all night to the protective instinct that is written into every papa bear. I listened to the emergency radio transmissions, while tracking the storm on my phone, and keeping a pistol (recently gifted to me by my dad) close to my side. The rain pelting the car, the pitch-black night and the lack of sleep had me on high alert. I tracked every pair of headlights that came close to our general direction and assessed whether they were friend or foe. For all I know, Waverly could be home to cannibal Appalachians. And the Alexanders were not going to be on the menu.
The storm finally passed over us at 6AM, right as the first trickles of daylight appeared. The sense of spooky danger is gone, I am now REALLY tired. We left the hospital to see more flooded out cars, houses and a town without power, except for the golden arches of the American dream – McDonalds. And they were crazy enough to open up and sling people their McMuffins.
A gallon of coffee later, we take the Loretta Lynn highway to get back on to I-40. No one is on the road in either direction. There are downed trees, asphalt spill-over bridges are missing 1/3 of their width, and the terrain is covered with thousands of tiny ponds. I’ve driven over as many bridges as you have, and I’ve never once worried about it giving way.
There was a bridge about ½ mile long where the rushing brown brackish water was almost touching the road surface; as I sped across it I was quickly trying to determine what my first moves would be if it collapsed and we drove right into the water. Not a fun daydream scenario. I just wanted to be home.
We run into more rain, we make it safely home and my body feels gross from being in the car for two days and only consuming coffee, Monster energy drinks, Baked Lays and Starburst.
The “more rain” we drove through was apparently the knock out punch to the city of Nashville. You really should do a search for some the images or video, it is like Katrina II without all of the looting. And to think that we were in the middle of that, yikes. Next time I’m going to listen to old people and their worrisome weather talk, maybe.
