Outer Banks

Rough trip home

Hello. I’m home from North Carolina! Jimmy and I left NC at 3:50AM on Saturday and made it home by noon.

My parents, sister, neighbor, grandparents, and uncle were not so lucky. They all left in our rented (from Enterprise) GMC Yukon at 10:00AM and made it to Maryland, with only a little bit of traffic and 3 hours left in the trip.

Then the trouble happened.

The transmission straight-up died in the Yukon and they were stuck on the side of the road in the 103* heat. My dad called Enterprise and they said a replacement vehicle would be sent out to them in 60-90 minutes.

No luck. The person bringing them the vehicle couldn’t find my family. It wasn’t until 6 hours later that they got a replacement and could finally drive home. No one had any food or water all that time. My grandparents had an especially tough time because they are in their 70’s and in poor health.

My family arrived home at 3:00AM and everyone had to sleepover. It was crazy trying to fit everyone in bedrooms, on couches, and on the floor.

I’m just so happy that no one was hurt or seriously harmed. We also got fully compensated for the rental — woo!!

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A few more vacation pictures….

Mini golf and the beach!

Sand dunes and out to eat.

Cheerios, raw oysters, and salmon + shrimp salad

4th of July cookout with the fish we caught!

My gift to Lola… a new leash!

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Have you ever had any crazy traveling troubles?

Fire in paradise

Yesterday, around 10:30AM, Jimmy and I started walking from our beach house to the beach. As soon as we walked outside we saw this…Woah.

We couldn’t firgure out where the smoke was coming from and we didn’t know what caused it. People we standing in the streets just looking at the smoke with their jaws hanging open.

Jimmy convinced me to keep walking to the beach but I was so afraid. So many things ran through my mind… Should we evacuate? Are we going to be able to breathe? What if our house catches on fire? Is anyone hurt?When we got on the beach, we could see a thick layer of smoke over the water and could taste fire in the air. Eventually, someone told us that a nearby marsh fire was causing all the smoke and that it was contained.

Once we got home, I checked out some online news websites to see what really happened. It was nice to finally find out what was going on and to know that we weren’t going to die in a massive fire! As the day went on, the smoke cleared up as all was well again. Phew. What a crazy situation! I’m so glad everyone was safe and no extensive damage was done. God is good 🙂