My latest adventure... Caught in the Texas Storm, time in the ER, then surrounded by wild fires

So, my latest adventure was due to me deciding to move across the country...again. In the past 3 weeks I have driven not once but twice across the US. Why twice? Well, there were a couple reasons but mainly because the giant Budget Truck I rented didn't fit all my "stuff", and I had 2 other vehicles to move. So, I left across the country with load 1 then flew back to Nashville to wrap up the rest. (Side note: I made a new friend and after knowing her only 20 minutes invited her along on my 2nd road trip-she thought it sounded fun so she hopped the plane to Tennessee with me. lol)

Little did I realize what the future of this trip was going to entail.

My first night back in Nashville was awesome...I showed my new friend around the honky tonks and introduced her to a bunch of my good friends including a set of triples and my good friend Chris Young the country artist...everything seemed to be kicking off as planned.

That night we headed to my empty old rental, to make ourselves as comfortable as possible on the carpet floors, but when we arrived I noticed something was off...someone had been in my house. My new friend could tell I was upset by this discovery...I was also exhausted from burning the candle at both ends. She mentioned we could go find a hotel instead but I was done with the day...I knew she was beat too so we just went to sleep.

The next morning I began running around the house like a mad woman. I had Random people from ads I had posted to sell what remained there showing up every few minutes as I tried to clean. All I wanted was to be done with the place and that's when I went down hill.

Standing out in my front yard my stomach began to cramp, then I lost the circulation in my legs and collapsed to the grass. My arms curled into my chest and my fingers cramped up like a dying spider. I was horrified and in more pain then when I had my daughter with an all natural birth! I thought I was dying! No matter how hard I tried I could move my arms or fingers. I screamed at my new friend for help-to straighten my fingers PLEEEASE I pleaded. I thought about how I might never get to paint again! Then my vision started going in and out of blackness. I asked my friend to take me to the ER...as we drove my ability to speak also left me. I was now a tight crinkled ball, in the kind of pain you wouldn't wish on your greatest enemy, lost in total darkness, unable to communicate with just my thoughts. "What's my daughter going to do without me? ...I want to tell her I love her...I should have hugged my mom more...!"

After a few hours of being poked and pried and force fed random pills I eventually started to uncurl. They took some blood, did an ultra sound and ran a handful of other random tests. In the end they copped it all up to stress, and I stumbled out of the ER that afternoon. I had no idea stress could do so much, and I now believe the saying "stress can kill"

Amazingly my new friend decided to stick around...but she probably wouldn't have if she would have known in a few days Id be driving her through the heart of a hurricane. ... unintentionally of course. So, we were done with Nashville and by the doctors orders we decided it was time to have some fun. We wasted no time and headed south to New Orleans.

At one rest stop in Alabama we admired a rocket ship... of course. And in Mississippi a fancy gas station and some small road side fires... still wondering how those panned out.

Until we finally arrived at our destination, we got lucky and found an awesome little hotel in the French quarter called Hotel St Helen. The hotel was built in 1842 renovated in 2012 and originally dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon actually sold Louisiana to the US in 1803 for $15,000,000.00 to fund his military campaign. He was later defeated by the British and taken prisoner to the island of Ste. Helena where he died at 51. Pretty sure the place is haunted but we loved it! It even has a 24hr pool!! At the front desk we lucky enough to befriended the sweet gal who treated us with a suite!

Of all the things New Orleans is known for from Mardi Gras, and ghosts, too Voodoo and all the history; there is one thing that seems to awe the masses "THE FOOD!! For some time I had been talking about how fun it would be to take a trip there for a weekend of eating as much as humanly possible. lol I think this appealed to me more so after growing up in the Pacific North West and then land locking myself in Tennessee. Either way it was game on!

We also tested out the night life, had our fortunes read by a 5th generation Voodoo bone lady, and tried on some crowns...still mad I didn't buy it- just felt so natural lol ;) Then we ate some more as we watched some heavy rains rolled in (courtesy of hurricane Harvey, which we knew nothing about) so we decided it was time to go...to the beach... in Corpus Christi TX.

!

It didn't take long to realize something bad was going on in Texas...

See that blue dot? Yeah, that was us.

So our trip was really helping me de-stress, and my new friend was really counting her blessings for befriending me and joining me on this journey. Or not, lol she actually hit her breaking point while we were driving through a few feet of fast moving water. oops. Any ways, we found a hurricane and some flooding and also an escape route and a hotel room out of harms way. Ok, the hotel room was a flop and I had to ask for my money back after entering the room and discovered it smelled so bad of cat pee it made my eyes water, and the beds were covered in bugs and blood spots...and the walls were smeared with ??? something. (Did I mention I how thankful I am to be Jeep owner?, lol) ...No sleep that night.

YUCK.

I have to say we felt that was the last straw so we decided to just enjoy the open road and stop only to smell the flowers here and there. Until we found the fires burning through the North West *sigh.

By the time we reached the North West hundreds of thousands of acres had already burned under the flames of numerous forest fires and near the last day of our journey we woke to ash on my Jeep and a red sun. We choked our way across the last few miles of our trip, passing heart breaking patches of fried wilderness.

Friends and family shared pictures of the fires WAY too close to home and the heart breaking scenes of wild life trying to escape the flames...many of these fires are still buring, and its been weeks.

After all said and done we did finally make it to Washington State...where I B-lined for a local bar to sit alone and reflect over a beer.

Oh, and my daughter treated me with a face mask later that night...

Stay tuned I am leaving in 2 day on another adventure .. this Friday is my birthday and will be traveling to Colorado to see Chris Youngs concert ...and that's all I'm telling you for now.