The Great Beach Trip

Sometime early in the week during the great rainstorm of March, my twin (who had been studying with Audrey) randomly calls me and says “We’re gonna spend the night on the beach this weekend”! Of course I tell her that is a terrible idea because I am not the kind of person who enjoys sleeping outside in 50 degree weather and I had already spent three recent and cold days in the great outdoors. They convince me with their brilliant plan: we will go to Jr/Soph and dance the night away until 10 o’clock, then Audrey, Joey, Han, Autumn and me will drive Audrey’s mom’s car down to Gulf Shores, we will stay up all night and watch the sunrise, eat at waffle house and return to Judson to finish homework. What an awesome plan! We will drive 5 hours to and from the beach and stay there maybe 3 or 4 hours. We leave and our first bright idea is to take the long, scenic route to the beach because “we’ve never gone that way before” and a 3 hour trip became a five hour trip.
Audrey—gets about an hour of sleep because she was keeping Joey awake, and then drove the rest of the way while the rest of us sleep
Autumn—vehemently insists that she is NOT sleeping just because she lying on her pillow with her eyes closed. And then she sleeps for 4 and ½ hours, and giggles uncontrollably at the most un-funny and random things during the ½ hour she was awake
Joey—drives for about an hour and 1/2 , and makes us laugh [a lot] when he isn’t sleeping
Hannah—also sleeps for about four and ½ hours, and doesn’t understand any of the jokes the rest of us think are hilarious. Quote: “I didn’t know blind people could drive” (ask her about it)
I—sleep for about two hours and didn’t do anything very exciting
On the way back: we get a flat tire only a few minutes after leaving, discover the spare tire is actually a donut, and the tire that blew was completely worn on the inside and all the other tires might be just as worn out. Did you know that wal-mart does not carry 18 inch tires and no tire store in the world is open on Sunday mornings?? We didn’t but were quickly educated. Thanks to Audrey’s prayers the donut miraculously lasted all the way to Judson, but the 3 hr. trip once again turned into five hrs. because we didn’t go above 50 MPH the whole way back. We also saw an entire herd of cows (that had gotten loose from the fence) cross the road, Hannah was terrorized by a perverted demon-possessed bug, we drove (on a donut) through the most isolated parts of Alabama and Audrey’s parents do not know when or where her car got a flat. All in all it is one of the best weekends I’ve ever had.