Onward

 Today it was kind of rainy so I took the kids to the Birmingham Science Center. It wasn't as good as St. Louis Magic House, because not much is, but it was a pretty nice. They had a really fun toddler area that was reasonably self-contained and had stuff that was age-appropriate for my kids. They especially liked the water-play area and Clara really liked the play structure with the slide. Joshua also really liked this display that had several balls in perpetual motion.

After that, it was time for nap and then Jason loaded the car so we could drive to Florida. This isn't the most fun drive to do at night because it's a four hour drive and two hours is on normal interstate and two hours is on state highway that goes through national forest. So there's nothing there, only a few tiny towns, and absolutely no cell service on any carrier. But Jason is fine with driving at night and he has to work in the day this week so it was the best time.

The South is also a little funny about storms, or at least Birmingham is. My mom told me that one time they made a big mistake and thought an ice storm wouldn't hit them, so they had school and work as normal, but the ice storm did hit them. Sam was working that day and it took him like 2-3 hours in the car and he had to walk the last two miles in ice to get home because there were so many wrecks that the roads were blocked. His experience wasn't unique that day and I am sure the kids getting home from school probably haunts that superintendent's dreams. So now apparently they freak out at the drop of the hat. Today no Birmingham schools were in session because Thunderstorms were coming tonight (Like late. 10pm), which is crazy to me. Sam's office closed at 3. The Science Center closed at 1:30. And the whole time we were driving, we hardly saw anyone on the road except a couple trucks. It was raining when we left Birmingham, but otherwise the weather was totally fine the entire drive. We could tell a storm had come through the forest earlier in the day because there was some debris on the road, but nothing major.

But once we started to get close to my parents' home, it started raining pretty hard. This was a little scary because I couldn't check my cell phone for weather updates and it was so dark on that road and there was no place whatsoever to stop and we couldn't tell how close the water was to the road because it was so dark. But luckily our route didn't take us through any of the parts that had serious flash-flooding and we were able to finally make it to my parents' house in a torrential downpour. I am glad Jason was driving because not only do I hate driving in the dark, but also the rain. But he does fine in these types of situations.

When we got to ValP, we needed our stuff because we couldn't put the kids (or ourselves) to bed without it.  So Jason unloaded the car in the pouring rain, with my dad's help.  He was completely soaked by the end of it.