North Georgia Thunder and Barely Making it Off the Road

I have never been so glad to pull into the driveway of a motel.

The thunder storm struck last night when we were an hour south of the Tennessee border and it was like nothing I had ever seen before.

Now that's saying quite a bit after a year in south west Florida, where dramatic torrential downpours are common and lightening fills the sky like a nightly fireworks display every single night during the rainy season.

You see, I was shocked when we moved to Florida and the clouds would unleash their torrents and I'd find myself standing in inches of water that lapped over the tops of my shoes (even high heels!) in a matter of minutes.  And those storms still had nothing on last nights' nightmare.

Paul was miles behind us driving the U-haul and I had gone ahead after dinner with the girls to find a place to stay.  The first lightening strike was directly in front of us and I watched as all the cars around me, who had been cruising at 80 flying past us, locked it up and dropped down below the speed limit.  The sky was suddenly a dark charcoal grey.  Was it about to rain?

And then the sky opened up and I couldn't see through the windshield (we bought new wipers last week).  I leaned as far forward as I could in the far right lane, light on, looking for an exit, hoping that no one would hit us.  I could barely see the fog line and the center line immediately in front of us and stayed between them.

The lightening and the thunder came at the same time, but I couldn't actually see the strikes anymore.  The light from them filled the car with a blinding white glare that made it impossible to see anything and made me think that the down strikes were very, very close.

And then we were off the freeway with the car miraculously making it up a small hill that had turned into a stream, like all the other roads and into a parking lot.  I got out and asked for the exit number and finally got a call back from Paul who had somehow made it to the same exit.

The girls were giggling in the back, as if this was the greatest Disney World ride they'd ever been on, complete with squeals and arms thrown up in the air.

I nearly lost it when Paul came out and said that the motel owner was asking for too much and that we'd try somewhere else.  I was about to start screaming (okay, maybe I'd already started) that I would not be going back on that road, when the owner chased him back out and offered to make a deal (he was charging way too much, as a result of the storm I think).

Safe and snug in our room the storm felt a long way off and yet I hope I'm never out driving in something like that ever again!  North Georgia wins the prize for the scariest lightening storm I have ever seen!