Brown County: Weekend Getaway

What!? What, you say? Did Bekah leave home twice in one year? Oh how it boggles the mind.

And yet it's true.

Let me back up and tell you how it happened.

Back in July, my good friend Julie asked how I'd feel about a girls' getaway weekend. I was absolutely amazed at her suggestion, because Julie is married and is a pretty new mom, and most of my married and/or mom friends aren't up for getaways. Needless to say, I was pretty stinking thrilled that she even asked...and even more excited that she picked me for a traveling buddy!

We settled upon a destination of Brown County. If you're not from Indiana, you're probably not impressed. :) Brown County is in the south central part of Indiana, and it's well known for its beautiful fall foliage. There are tons of cabins down in that part of the state, so that was our goal. A cute little cabin, no responsibilities, and loads of fun.

And so, Thursday morning, we departed from home and entered drama-land. The (several...sorry) posts below will show you more of our vacation. More pictures, less writing. But these stories are too good, so this post remains: Bits from Bekah's Dramatic Traveling Life.

You can see that everything began well:
We had planned to leave my house about 10, but she ran a bit late, and we had to load the car, and I had to run by work to leave something with a friend and gas hadn't gone down in price overnight like I'd hoped, so we had to stop and fill up anyway...and we got a late start.

PRAISE THE LORD.

When we reached the north side of Indianapolis, traffic was ridiculously slow. Rush hour traffic kind of slow. Helicopters buzzing overhead kind of slow.

We found out why:

I didn't take that from our car...it's a picture of a picture. But just about the time we might have been merging onto 465, a truck hauling propane exploded right at our exit. Above is the explosion where we might have been....

...and this is where we actually were.

A little too close for comfort, but how thankful we were for God's protection! And in case you're not from around here and don't already know this - amazingly, no deaths in that explosion. By the time we got up to our exit, we had to call for directions to a new route. Found that (after getting lost once) and went on our merry way.

We arrived in Brown County a little after lunch time, loaded up on some carbs, and decided to head to the orchard. (We couldn't check in to the cabin until 4, so we were trying to make good use of our time for other activities.)

The orchard was about a 30 minute drive...(more if you get lost, which we did)...but it was so incredibly gorgeous, because the roads we drove took us right through the heart of the trees.

Have you ever seen that commercial where the Dad is swinging his little boy and everything is all serene, and then the boy comes swinging back to Dad and is suddenly a huge man on the swing...knocking the Dad to the ground? That's kind of how this part of the trip was for us.

We were savoring the scenery...taking pictures, gushing about the beauty, when suddenly...

...well, we didn't get a picture of the actual event, but "dump station" is pretty accurate. There was an overlook pullover kind of spot, and as we drove by, we saw a truck parked there with a man standing beside it. Only as we passed, did we realize the man (kind of older) was standing there with his pants down to his ankles, wiping. Yes, wiping. Enough said.

We continued on our trek to the orchard, and we ended up on a 2 lane highway. Not a super-busy one, but a well-traveled road. I was driving along probably just under the speed limit (since we were looking for our road, I didn't want to go too fast), with a tow truck behind me and an SUV behind him. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw that the SUV was about to pass the tow truck and me. I looked ahead and saw a pickup coming our way.

A few seconds later, I realized the SUV did not have time to pass both the tow truck and me before the pickup arrived, so I gunned it to created enough space for the SUV (who by this time was far enough up to be almost in between us) to get in before the truck arrived. Well, apparently the tow truck was unamused by the SUV's audacity to pass us at all, because he too sped up, and he moved over and tried to run the SUV off the road. I was horrified when I saw the tow truck bump the SUV with his back end...because the pickup truck was almost there and I had no idea what to do.

The SUV managed to stay in control of his vehicle and also managed to drop back. At that moment (still in the rearview mirror), I saw the pickup truck go full speed into the ditch to avoid a head-on collision. Had he not done that, he would have hit the SUV. None of them stopped...everyone just got back on the road and went on, so we kept going too. I was scared to death of the tow truck by that point. If he would try to run an SUV off the road while trying to force a head-on collision, I had no idea what he might do to little old me who hadn't been going quite the limit. Fortunately he turned onto a side road and I could focus forward...

...just in time to enter a school zone. I slammed on the breaks just as a cop whipped into view and pulled a car over as it came toward me.

It was then that Julie and I knew we were a jinx to all drivers around us. :)

We enjoyed a great time at the orchard, followed by this lovely view....

...as we got lost going back to Brown County.