My Date And Time Stamps Are Wrong.

It Is Tuesday May 1st 2007.

Cleveland Rocks.....Especially For Unexpected Stops!

Wow! What a day! I thought I might update everyone on our progress. We checked the radar before leaving this morning to hitt the road. We were aware that there could be a few storms throughout some of our areas of travel. Yikes! A few storms? Everything was great until we reached Erie, PA. It started with rain and lightening, then turned to complete down pour. It took several miles before we could actually see where we were going on the road. VERY frightening!!! The rain eased up a bit but we looked up to see some really dark clouds hanging very low. Spencer and I noticed them about the same time. I had just started to say "maybe we can drive out of this" when all of a sudden we saw ahead a flashing white light just off the right hand lane. At first, I thought that traffic was stopping because of a Tornado. Then I realized that a car was on it's side. My next thought was that it had blown over. When we pulled up behind we realized it had over corrected and flipped. Spencer jumped out to go help and I turned on the hazard lights. It was really freaky with the black clouds rolling by and the man trapped in his Explorer. He was fine and we made it through the storms until Cleveland. So here we are! There are watches and warnings all over. We thought it would be best to stop over for the night. Keep us in your prayers!

Blogging From The Road

This post is brought to you by our Verizon Wireless Access Card. At the moment, we're driving through construction on I-90 to Buffalo. It's nice to have a little distraction from the the traffic. If you don't know already, I have a tendency to be a nervous traveler. I am very very grateful that this route is no where near as mountainous and less curvy. I did start a fickr account because of all the photos we took. You can check it out. Well gotta go, the battery is very low.
We'll keep adding photos. (I'm trying to figure out how to add the video clips we've taken.)
See you further down the road! :)

Photo Blogging: Jersey to Stuyvesant to Albany

Here are some more photos. I may have to start a flicker account to share them all with you.

The Boys Pretending To Be Statues In Albany.
The Trip From Stuyvesant To Albany.
The Rip Van Winkle Bridge Across The Hudson.
The Road To Jeff and Lisanne's.

F.Y.I.

I just had to know the name of the giant mountains we drove through in PA. My BIL was able to tell us that they were most likely the Allegheny Mountains. Here are some links to info about them. I'm sure I over reacted to them and I do feel like an idiot. Even so, I still think they were ginormous. You decide.

Topographic Maphttp://fermi.jhuapl.edu/states/maps1/pa.gif

Britanica Article http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9005778/Allegheny

No Wake Up Call Thank You, Just Set Off The Fire Alarm.....That Will Do

The "view" from our window.
This is near the "closer" Wal-Mart in the mountains.

That's what I said this morning. If you plan on sleeping, don't stay in a hotel! Yesterday as we were leaving to search for a Wal-Mart, we noticed that the strobe lights for the fire alarm flashed and the fire doors latched shut. It freaked us out a little bit at the time. Spencer works with this kind of equipment and was pretty sure there was just a system malfunction. No fire. It didn't seem to faze anyone else either. When we started to open the fire door there was a maid with her cart on the other side. She said hello and walked past us. We figured it was really nothing but we did have to take the stairs. (Elevators are set to return to lobby and lock in fire threat.)

So any hoo we find said Wal-Mart, after getting directions from the Front Desk (oh sure this one is closer.......to Albany!!!!!) LOL!! We had to drive 25 min. and into what we figured were the Catskills. The towns and roads here are crazy, that's another post. OK so getting back on track. We come back, we sleep, I wake to pee and then the fire alarm goes off.

So much for going back to sleep! The part the really stinks is, my kids were in a deep sleep that would have allowed me to get at least another hour. Rats! We looked out our window (overlooks lobby) and once again the staff was unfazed. Hmmmm...what to do. You don't want to go running and screaming like a crazy person and you don't want to stay too long without knowing for sure that's it's a false alarm. I wanted to go just in case but Spencer was sure that once again, there was, a system malfunction. As it turns out he was right. A bad detector was responsible for the strobes yesterday and the false alarm this morning.

Oh My Golly.....Those Sure Are Big!

No, dirty minds, it's not what you think!! Get them out of the gutter! My title actually refers to the mountains of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. If you don't know I have a bit of an issue with heights!!! I wasn't prepared for hundreds of miles of mountainous, cavernous, frightening landscape. The last time I made this trip was four years ago. It was very late and very dark so I had *NO* idea what we had driven through. My husband (most likely for his own sanity) didn't warn me of what was to come after Ohio. In my defense, the pictures don't even due justice to how tall these mountains really are. At one point I had to breath very slowly because I could see ahead of me one giant towering mountain on each side of what felt like a very tiny road with signs warning of falling rock! What!! Seriously as frightened as I was, it was also so amazing to see such beautiful places. Some of the photos didn't come out so great and there were times I was too afraid to take a picture! LOL! If you want to check them out I'm going to post them on our photo page The Life In Pictures. (There is a link on my sidebar.)

Stay tuned for more!!

Could It Be?

We had a wonderful and blessed Easter, we hope you did as well. Sunday was also my niece Avie's second birthday! Such a big girl now!! (You can check out pics from her party at The Life In Pictures.) After Avie had finished opening all her presents my sister (her mom) and I spent some sister time on the sofa. We were all comfy with legs stretched out on the ottoman chatting, when suddenly I began to chuckle. (Consult photo, OK side note, if you don't know Winter has decided to stick around here and it's very cold. ) I realized that something seemed, well, a little off. You see, I am a bit of a sock rebel and tend to wear open toed shoes much much later in the year than "normal" people. I am constantly reprimanded by, well quite frankly, mothers, who I'm sure mean well. "Girl!" They say "Aren't you're feet freezing!!! You need to get some stockings on!!"

Even my sister has given me heck, a time or two. So you can imagine my glee when I glanced down and noticed that I , yes I, was the one wearing socks!! LOL!

OK, because my sister reads my blog and would *TOTALLY* sell me out, I have to admit that I only put the socks on because my feet *were* freezing after having worn open toed shoes to Easter service.

The Greatest Gift

I'd like to thank God on this, Good Friday, for the greatest gift. All that I am, is in you Lord.

I've included the Lyrics to one of the most beautiful songs ever written. I wish that I could have figured out how to add a sound file so that you could actually hear it. It's just one of those songs, for me at least, that just encompasses everything you'd say if you could. If you're interested in hearing the song email me.

Above All
By
Michael W. Smith

Above all powers, Above all kings
Above all nature And all created things
Above all wisdom, And all the ways of man, You were here Before the world began

Above all kingdoms, Above all thrones, Above all wonders The world has ever known
Above all wealth And treasures of the earth, There's no way to measure What You're worth

Crucified, Laid behind the stone
You lived to die, Rejected and alone
Like a rose, Trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me, Above all