Friday's horrific 9 hour drive to New Hampshire

This past Friday, Brian and I, Julianna and our dog Pepper left our house at 1pm to drive up to New Hampshire to visit my father. Normally this would be a 3.5 to 4 hour drive... Well it wasn't even close! It ended up being the 9 hour drive from hell!

1:00 pm, Friday - left the house... dog & kid sleeping in the backseat.

3:00 - We got over the Tapanzee bridge & on Route 684 and it was time to feed Julianna... so we stopped to feed her and grab some snacks.

3:30 - Got back on the road... Should only be 2 hours more til our destination ... and just like that - traffic was dead stopped on the highway with no relief in site! Let me just say I hate traffic! I have grown to loathe it since I work from home now!! I am spoiled.

5:00 - Yeehaw, Still sitting in the same traffic 1 and 1/2 hours later - we had gone maybe 15 miles...

6:30 - Yup you guessed it - still sitting in the same traffic. We had now gone, if we were lucky, 20 miles since 3:30. Kill me now!! Julianna then started to fuss - it was time for her to eat again. So we pulled off the next exit (the only exit!) to feed her; at some disgusting gas station where people were peeing behind the dumpsters b/c the bathroom line was too long. Thank goodness I can hold it!! No way was I doing that scene! Some local guy told us there were 2 bad accidents and that's what was holding up the traffic for so long. Arghhh! p.s. Brian took Pepper out to pee, and she started munching on some nasty rotten chicken bones that were in the grass- Who knows how long they were there for! Ugh! It probably used to be someone's chicken that escaped from their farm 5 years ago!

7:00 - back on the highway - The traffic picked up - and we were moving. FINALLY. We got on route 91 north - and here comes the rain! Hard!

8:30 - I had to go to the bathroom and we were hungry...We saw a sign for KFC and got off at that exit. It was my bright idea to go to KFC my husband would later remind me.
Followed the signs to KFC through a not so nice area, but hey, we just wanted to use the bathroom and get drive-thru KFC .... (yeh I know, grease & fat galore, so not on the diet!)
I went into KFC to use the bathroom first and it started torrentially down pouring - the kind where you look like you jumped in a pool after being outside for 15 seconds. I got drenched... went into the bathroom (it was disgusting but when you gotta go, you gotta go - you hover over the seat & don't touch a thing!) I got back in the car drenched. Then Brian went and he couldn't even go in the men's room because it was so gross. He went in the women's room. LOL
Then, we drove over to the KFC drive-thru line so we could order some chicken strips.

9:00 - Still pouring down rain. Still in line for KFC drive-thru and we didn't even get to the part where we could order - we were blocked in by curbs and landscaping. There were only 3 or 4 cars in front of us when we got on line, you would think it would only be a few minutes wait. NOT. Apparently every family in this town goes to KFC on Friday night when it rains because when we turned around, there were 10 cars behind us.
Then ... Julianna started to cry, no, she started to WAIL - and I mean full blown screeching where her voice was going hoarse and she sounded like she might throw up any second from screaming so hard. So while we were in line STILL WAITING FOR THEM TO TAKE OUR ORDER, I crawled in the backseat of the car to try and calm this child! Pepper (our dog) is looking at me like "She's crying - do something now!" ... I tried it all. I sung to Julianna, played with her, gave her a binky; No Success. She wailed even louder!! I made the parental decision to unstrap her and remove her from her car seat (yeh I know - I'm a bad parent!) so I could change her diaper - it's not like we were going anywhere any time soon.
Picture this - the child is SCREAMING ... I am in the backseat with her... I take her out of her seat - I am rocking her, soothing her, talking & singing to her... She is screaming louder & louder. I was ready to jump out of the car if it wasn't raining so darned hard! So I changed her diaper - no good - screaming louder now! LOL Oh and while all this is going on - Brian finally got to pull up to the microphone and order our 2 measly chicken strips. He couldn't hear the guy, I could hear Brian angrily saying "What? What? Speak up" - He was getting drenched - the child is screaming - I am trying to sing to her ... all at the same time ... it was a freaking nightmare.

Then I started to scream along with Julianna like a psycho & that was it - We had to get out of there, who cares about the stupid chicken!!
I screamed to Brian (my very incredibly tolerant husband) "Put it in 4 wheel drive now & Hop the F***ing curb NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just go - GO NOW!!!!!!!"
So because I probably scared the life out of him, he promptly put it in 4wd, turned the wheel and gunned it over the curb. Ba-Boom - crunch - We plowed down the KFC landscaping bushes & rocks... and ended up on the main road and turned down the next road so I could buckle in Julianna. Kids, don't try this at home. Yes I know it was illegal and wrong but too bad. I couldn't take another second waiting in that line with poor Julianna screaming!

We suspect the guy in the car behind us got our chicken strips. LOL. Imagine his surprise. Although imagine his surprise when he saw us tear over the curb & bushes like a bat out of hell. It's ok - we're from Jersey!

I put Julianna back in her carseat, and we took off, got back on Route 91, watching and waiting for flashing police lights behind us the whole way. Can you see it? "Uh, sir, we have a report that your RAV4 hopped the curb, ran over and destroyed KFC property .... can you please step out of the car?" LOL. Somewhere in Massachusetts today was one underpaid pissed off KFC worker trying to salvage the bushes and fix what we plowed down. haha!

Once we started going - Julianna stopped crying immediately. It's like she knew we were in a bad area... and wanted to get the hell out of there! haha! She was asleep in less than 5 minutes. We were cracking up that's all it took to calm her!

Brian and I got on the highway and just looked at each other, and started hysterical laughing and couldn't stop laughing. I was crying because I was laughing so hard!! LOL!



We finally made it to our destination in NH around 10pm! What a day!