Heading to the Burg

The kids and I took off for the week to Rexburg to go spend some time with Laura and drop Manda off. Now I am a sad, lonely Mom without my big girls. (Have I ever mentioned that I don't like that?) On the way there we had to go through Lewiston to pick up some much needed medication for Laura. So I decided to head South to Rexburg from there but happened to get distracted talking on the cell phone... ooops... don't ever do that and drive- bad idea- and missed my turn! =) So being the wise person that I am decided to just have my navigation system find me a new route so that I would NOT have to turn around. Oh yes, it only gets better from here folks! Then, trusting my nav system continued down the road. Has anyone else heard the stories on the news lately about the people getting stranded from following their GPS systems??? Yes, even after hearing the horror stories, I continued on my way. Everything seemed just peachy until the paved road disappeared. Do you think I would turn around then? Oh no. We were only 8 miles from the road that we needed to connect to at that point. So, I continue. I had no time for such inconveniences since I still had at least an 8 hour drive ahead of me at this point. 8 miles was not going to keep me from connecting to the road I really needed! It was starting to get dark, roads became muddy, then the road gets very narrow and twisty and by the point that I decided this was not a good idea, I didn't feel like the road was wide enough for me to turn around. Now our family has been known to take some wild 4x4 roads high on the mountain side while on vacation. But it has always been in our four wheel drive with Rick driving and not me in my low riding mini van with all the kids and having Mandy pray that we will be okay and get off the side of the mountain before it was pitch black. What choice did we have at this point? Manda was the look out and had to make sure that there was not a car coming from the other direction as we would go around the turns (because the road always got more narrow as you came to a turn, of course) and we very cautiously and slowly made our way across that 8 mile short cut that took FOREVER!!!!!!!!!
What an adventure. At least we got one shot from the window of the van before it was too dark. It does not capture how high we were and how narrow the roads got but I have to say that the picture really wasn't the priority at that point! =) We are happy to report that we did safely arrive in Rexburg 10 1/2 hours later early in the morning (and only getting pulled over by a cop once, sorry Manda, it really was my fault). The ride home was so much better. Even with one driver, we made it home in 9 hours and only one small incident with a deer that luckily for me, beat up the car in front of us. It is never dull around here!