Shower Adventure

So, it all started out as such a lovely idea. There were five of us women who would ride together to Sandy (McClurg) Bush's baby shower in Knoxville: Diane McClurg, Lynn Grzech, Elsie McClurg, Brooke Proctor and me. After all, Sandy's first little baby, Andrew is due May 24th, and we all wanted to go share this time with her and her mom, first time grandma, Alycia.

Although it had been pouring rain all night, and still raining when we left, the drive to Knoxville was uneventful, lots of chatting and laughing and catching up all the way there; we had packed lunches so we wouldn't have to stop. The shower was lots of fun, good food, good company, games, and... Alycia's famous chocolate covered devil's food cake balls (I'll be making those for some event very soon!).

Sandy & Lindsay by the adorable "diaper cake"

This cake made of newborn diapers and layette items was SOOO cute! Lindsay made it for Sandy.

So, all was well, we left the shower and headed home -- anticipating a couple of hours on the road, in the rain, and returning home to find everything all safe and sound....WRONG!!

We were calling our husbands to let them know we were on our way, and all of us were getting these warnings from our husbands that the rain in Franklin and Nashville was horrible -- flash flooding everywhere, roads were being closed, the interstates may not be safe, rivers were rising, people were being evacuated from their homes...we kept driving, because we...well, we were going home. By the time we were approaching Cookville, the rain was coming down so hard, we could no longer see the road, even though it was still daylight. We were listening to the radio, and they were announcing interstate closures, and saying people were getting stranded on the interstates, and having to be rescued, as their cars were floating away! Our husbands also advised us to stop where we were safe. WHAT?! This was ridiculous!

So...concerned that when it was dark, it would be even more treacherous, we decided to pull over in Cookville, and see if we could find a hotel room, and drive home on Sunday. We saw several motels by the interstate, and chose the lovely Hampton Inn. They said they had a room with two double beds and we could bring in a roll-away...PERFECT!  :o)

Elsie was delighted to see a familiar picture in the motel room -- she used this very picture as a sample to paint from in one of her art classes years ago!

Of course, when we got to the room, it was a nice enough room, but much too small to set up a roll-away bed! There was literally no room anywhere to set it up -- not even the closet or bathroom! So we called the front desk, and asked how they expected us to use the roll-away, and they said we "may have to move some furniture..." well, long story short, we did move a table and a suitcase rack -- to the ONLY available spot: ON TOP OF THE ENTERTAINMENT CENTER.

We were all laughing at the ridiculousness of moving furniture on top of furniture, but hey, it worked. Wet, hungry and bedraggled we decided to go to Walmart and get some pajamas and toiletries...since none of us had planned on an overnighter! Now, let me tell you, shopping for cheap jammies as a crowd is quite an exciting experience! And I learned that Amazons shop in different sections from dwarfs.

And because Lynn & Brooke's shoes were soaking wet and they were slipping around in them, they took them off and walked around Walmart barefoot, until the Walmart "No Shoes/No Service" Gustapo came and made them put them back on...

So we all got what we needed, and headed out for FOOD. There was a Shoney's nearby, and we felt certain they would have lots of things on their menu to take care of our hunger. Wellllll....they sorta did. They had salmon and rice (NOT on the diet), or a salad with broccoli and other vegetables in it -- but you couldn't substitute cooked broccoli or veggies for the rice. Like they couldn't take the broccoli they were using for the salads and cook some of it? Do they have microwaves in Cookville? And don't get me started on our "first day on the job" waitress. So, we ate the salmon and some of the rice (no will power) or a chicken caesar, or whatever, and then of course since they didn't have cooked broccoli, we had to top everything off with ICE CREAM HOT FUDGE CAKE -- we were tired, wet, worried and delirious! We needed comfort food.

After that delightful fine dining experience, we headed to the motel and put on our new Walmart jammies!

The next dilemma: to wash our faces, or not to wash our faces? No makeup to put on in the morning (oh, my!) and no hair curling/fixing utensils. This could be scary! But some of us did, some of us didn't and no mirrors cracked in the process.

We watched TV news the rest of the evening, and they were showing horrible rains and flooding. Once we found out that all our families were safe, we were able to relax a bit.  But we were very worried about our drive home the next morning...with good reason.

Sunday morning, after watching news very late the night before, we turned the TV on first thing to more of the same. After again talking to our husbands, watching the forecast, and calling my friend Pat Woodmansee who works for Emergency Management, and getting a "STAY PUT" from her, too, we decided to stick it out in Cookville for another day until we could be sure the roads were clear and safe for travel. By now our cell phone batteries were dying, and we were seriously in need of another trip to Walmart.

So to get our minds off the flooding, we went back to Walmart and got some clean shirts, a cell phone charger, Diet Dr. Pepper, beef jerky and a couple of other things we needed (like MAKEUP) because a girl can only go a day or so without it. And...I had to FORCE Brooke and Lynn NOT to buy these stylish golashes. Seriously, had to rip them from their cold, wet hands.

We had a delicious dinner at Longhorn steakhouse -- absolutely what we needed to calm our hearts and souls. Who says there's no such thing as "soul food?" Full, fat and sassy, we headed back to the motel.

We discovered a washer/dryer around the corner, so we did some laundry at the lovely Hampton laundromat. During this process, we found our room keys no longer worked. After the front desk gave us two new sets to try, and Elsie was getting a complex about electronic keys, then they came and tried too -- they determined we'd have to have the room re-keyed. It was getting a little ridiculous now, with the room escapades, and the motel knew it. So the front desk guy told us our second night would be free (on top of the discount they had already given us because we had to play Legos with the furniture to fit the roll-away in our room.)
We'll take it!

To lighten the mood, we decided to turn off the news and watch a "chick flick" called "When In Rome." It was cute, clean, predictable, and a nice escape from the situation at hand.

We were all awakened Monday morning by two VERY LOUD THUDS! We all started laughing, and Brooke rushed to the window to find that, as an added bonus, Hampton guests are treated to the earth-shattering noise of garbage receptacle dumping at the crack of dawn on Monday mornings. So, with that, we all got up, turned on the TV to make sure we hadn't dreamed everything, proceeded to quickly get beautiful, and hit the road.

And for the record, Diane McClurg can manage to look FABULOUS amidst chaos and humidity and clothes that cannot be laundered!  (Oh yeah, in there somewhere we MIGHT have eaten things we shouldn't have at the *FREE* breakfast buffet downstairs...again.)

We travelled home safely and (miraculously) on dry roads. We got on 840 and went all the way down south of Franklin and worked our way back up. We saw water all around, but never encountered any near the roads. We got to the McClurgs, I hopped in our van -- grateful it hadn't floated away -- ran home to finish putting on a face, and headed off to work the rest of the day.

What an ADVENTURE! We decided to blame the whole thing on Sandy -- how dare she get pregnant and have a baby shower in the first place?!