For Friday, and only 15 hours late...

So yesterday was a bit...well, I spent my day feeling quite cranky and extremely hot. We got up early enough to get some of the house cleaned before packing and leaving for Tipton. Husband surprised me by waving his magic wand and getting off work in time to be home at 10:30am. Husband hasn't had a vacation for well over a year, he doesn't take days off, it was an absolute treat that he got home so early. We worked hard and got the car packed up and we were off only 30 minutes after our goal time of noon. We have two vehicles, a car, and a minivan. It is June and both A/Cs are out. We chose the car simply because it had less stuff in it than the van and took off. The ride started out well enough, a little warm, Daughter and I were in the sun. After about 30 minutes, the traffic was backed up and we were looking for a way out. We headed over to 94 just to end up on a detour to 294 because our southbound ramp was closed. We finally made it to 294 (we've now been on the road for 1.5 hrs and gone 10-15 miles) and I noticed that the traffic was slowing again. Daughter was getting sunburned so I rigged a sun shade out of Husband's raincoat and the window. She eventually fell asleep and we kept moving, slowly, but surely. A lot more of this stop and go traffic & heat, and noise (windows down got quite loud) and we eventually made it to 65 where we kept seeing warning signs that one lane driving was causing long delays near Lowell. We messed with the navigation feature on my phone for awhile before deciding to brave it. We had been on the road for 4 hours by this time, were still 3 hours from our destination (and that was if the traffic wasn't backed up). The entire trip should have taken 4 hours. We were hot. We were tired. We were cranky. My RLS was driving me insane. I hadn't eaten in almost 8 hours and was feeling a bit dizzy from the heat and lack of sustenance. We finally got to our usual stop and decided on Arby's. We thankfully piled out of the car and headed in and right away I knew we couldn't stay. We all went into the restroom, changed Daughter's pee-soaked clothes, and walked back out. The AC was out there too. We needed relief so we headed into Cracker Barrel to eat, cool off, and regroup. We were able to rally and only stopped one more time so that I could drive the rest of the way in. We even made it here before the sun set -7.5 hours later. We were all troopers though and we made it, can't wait until Sunday, ; ) and we'll do it all again.