This isn't really happening

Have you ever seen the movie, "National Lampoons Vacation"? Not only have I seen it (many times), I had the chance to live it the past few days.

Clark Griswald wanted to take his family to Wally World. He planned his trip for a long time.

I wanted to take my family to Chimney Rock, NC. I planned this for some time.

Friday was the day to go. Thursday night, Cari and I checked the weather one more time. Forecasted rain. Ok. We'll go on Saturday. Just one little delay. So we stayed home on Friday, in the sunshine. Beautiful blue skies and white fluffy clouds. No rain. We checked the weather again Friday night. Forecast for Saturday, "rain." After being fooled once, we decided we would go. Only a 60% chance of rain.

Cari woke up first Saturday morning and saw that it had poured rain during the night. She again checked the weather and saw 80% rain at Chimney Rock. She woke me and said we should wait an hour. The hour came and went. Cari went out to pack the car only to discover that we had left the windows down over night. The car was flooded. Inches of water resting on the floor. Seats soaked. This is just a slight delay. We were going to Chimney Rock no matter what.
With the flood sucked out of the car, we loaded up. Chance of rain at Chimney Rock 60%.

Getting to Chimney Rock meant driving over the mountain range between us and the park. Low cloud cover meant we were driving on the most curvy road, up hill, practically blind. A creepy ride, but we survived it.

On the other side of the mountain we were greeted by a light rain. We continued on. We were now near the town of Hendersonville and traffic had picked up a lot. We were approaching the intersection of two major highways. Traffic was stop and go. If only the guy behind me knew about the stop part. A black truck driven by some teen slammed into the back of us. When I say slammed, I guess it's perspective. My only other car wreck is where I was slammed from behind. In comparison, I guess this guy tapped us. Anyway, the tap caused us to lunge forward. I was watching him in the mirror just as he was getting to me. I let off the brake on impact. I don't know if that helped or not. We pulled over into the turn lane.

The other driver and I got out to survey the scene. This kid was scared. He said, "I'm sorry sir." no less than twenty times. A highway patrol car happened to be in the next lane over and asked if we needed him. We had no injuries and at the time saw no damage so we went on without a report.

Cari was covered in coffee. We found a Walmart (of course it was Walmart) and Cari went in for a change of clothes. We certainly weren't turning around now.

After new clothes and finding the dent in my trunk lid, we started back toward Chimney Rock. The rain persisted. Only a 60% chance. That means there was a 40% chance it would stop.

Are you seeing how a nice family trip can turn into a disaster? I started feeling like Clark Griswald. Did Clark ever give up? Nope.

Finally, we made our trip to Chimney Rock Park. This privately owned park is a beautiful mountain area with trails and waterfalls. Most of the park is on top of the mountain offering a beautiful view of Western North Carolina.

We pulled up to the ticket booth. Thankfully, it was covered because it was still raining. Clouds covered most of the mountain and the top was out of view. After we paid, Cari said the ticket booth lady was laughing at us.

When the Griswald family made it to Wally World, do you remember what happened? It was closed. Did that stop Clark? Nope. They were going to have a great family trip.

When we got to the parking area and saw clouds and rain, did that stop me? Nope. We were going to have a great family day hiking in the rain on the side of a mountain.

In my next post I'll tell you all about Chimney Rock Park.