What do you do when the trip you have planned for months is suddenly threatened by Hurricane Florence? Let me tell you:
- you spend the 4 days before you leave tracking the weather obsessively, monitoring the changes and repeatedly assessing whether you are likely to make it through the mountain pass before heavy rains close the roads and create flash floods and mudslides.
- you brave driving in the traffic in Atlanta, all 16 lanes of craziness so you can land far west enough of the hurricane to get somewhat close to your destination.
- you tune out the endless stream of messages telling you how crazy you are and all the reasons you should stay home.
- you continuously assess all the things you cannot possibly control, and focus only on the things you can.
- you arrive exhausted and road dirty after 12 hours of traveling and consider Domino's pizza for dinner because you are too exhausted to do anything else. In the end you decide maybe going hungry is better than Domino's.
- you go for a walk in the morning and focus on being grateful for the view and who you are with rather than not being able to run.
- you decide to explore a waterfall even if the route may not meet your surgeons approval
- you spend the next day in constant gratitude for the blue sky's and sunshine while you get to explore an amazingly beautiful national park.
- you see a hundred places on the mountain road that you would love to run, if you weren't 5 weeks post knee surgery and vow to come back again, just to run
- you get ready for the concert that you have been excited about for months, knowing that as soon as your old friend plays the first note, he will be speaking directly to your soul.
- you remind yourself again about what you can't control and how many things you can be grateful for when the show gets cancelled at the last minute.
- you spend 2 hours on the phone with Delta trying to figure out the best flight to switch too because if you stay for the entire time you planned you are likely not going to be able to drive back through the mountain pass for at least a week.
- you vow to find a way to make up the missed show and settle for the promise of another chance at sharing this experience.
- you spend the next morning sad and melancholy and plan another walk through the park. When you arrive and see that the Blue Ridge Parkway is already shut down and the park is going to close, you decide that maybe a few extra hours at the Atlanta airport inst so bad.
- You arrive at hell... aka Atlanta, 5 hours before the one you are scheduled on, and 35 minutes before the next Milwaukee bound flight. You decide to chance it and try to make it through rental car return, check in and security along with the train to the terminal, all in 35 minutes or less.
- you arrive at the gate as sweaty as if you had just taught a spinning class, with under 5 minutes to spare.
- you arrive in Wisconsin and experience the most love you could possibly experience with this greeting!
Week three has arrived and it has brought plenty of other things into my life.
