Lee arrived home from Basic Training, the kids and I went to the airport to pick him up. He looked so handsome in his uniform, we were so proud of him. The good part was that Lee was home, but we had to get packed up and ready to start on our journey out west within 2 days.
We started out for Oklahoma two days later early in the morning, Lee was driving and I was the navigator. Basically, I had no experience, but I learned quickly. Our baby was 6 months old at that time and I was still breast feeding. Both of the kids were good travelers and slept part of the way. Our son and I played games and marveled at the sights we were seeing. We drove as far as Ohio the first night, I don't recall how many miles it was, but it was certainly farther than either of us had ever traveled in a car. It was just so wonderful to be all together as a family starting out on a new adventure. It didn't take much to make us happy! We had an uneventful night and we were ready to hit the road the next morning after breakfast. Our finances were pretty limited so we had packed a cooler with drinks and snacks for the kids and a few sandwiches as well. I guess we didn't know any better and we were not accustomed to having money so we just made due the best we knew how.
That morning we started out it was May 31st and our itinerary was mapped out to go directly through Indianapolis, Indiana, the day of the Indy 500. It never occurred to us, we had a plan and we couldn't let a little distraction like that worry us. Right around noon time or a little past we were stopped at a red light and a car rear ended us. He was traveling about 30 miles/hr, so it was a huge jolt. I can still remember my neck snapping backwards and then forwards, but it was the children we were concerned about. Thank God they were fine, the baby was a little scrunched up in her bassinet, but no worse for wear than that, and our son was fine as was Lee. Thankfully, we all had our seat belts on.
The car that hit us had two passengers, both men were obviously drunk and headed for the Indy 500. The police came and I told them that the men were drunk, plus there was a cooler of beer in the back seat. The police blew it off saying "they have enough other problems to deal with." The rear end of our car was heavily damaged and it was impossible to get the trunk closed, so we resorted to tying it the best we could so that we could continue on. In the interim I went to the Emergency Room as I was experiencing neck and back pain. They did some x-rays and we were on our way, Lee had a dead line and we did not have time to waste. Consequently, we were going to travel further that day because of the delay in Indianapolis. After the drive through St Louis, Missouri we stopped in the first small town we came across. It had been quite an experience driving through St Louis right about rush hour. After all we were a couple of "country bumpkins" and had never really seen that volume of traffic before. We rented a motel room, had something to eat and then everyone took their showers and relaxed for a short time before we retired for the night. Sleep was not to be, around 1:30 in the morning Lee woke me up and told me he thought he was passing a kidney stone. The year before while driving back to New York he had experienced his first stone. He was soaked with perspiration and writhing in pain. Here we were in a strange city, in the middle of the night, with 2 small children and a pekingese dog which we were not supposed to have in the room. At first I was so scared I didn't know what to do, but then I decided to run over to the office and tell the proprietor our predicament. She was so good to us, and could have cared less about the dog. The kids were sleeping and she came right to our room and told us she would stay with them while I drove Lee to the hospital. (Actually, she loved the dog) We had no idea where to go, after all it was a totally strange city to us. I spotted a Police car parked along the street and I stopped and explained our plight to them. Within seconds we were on our way to the hospital with a Police escort, speeding down the middle of town, sirens and all. The Lord certainly was watching over us that night and actually has been our entire lives Lee explained to the ER physician that he had experienced a kidney stone the year before. He also informed him that he was expected to report for duty at Fort Sill Ok. and it was imperative that we not be delayed. Surprisingly, the physician medicated Lee with morphine and gave him some oral pills to hold him over until we arrived at Ft. Sill. It was dawn by the time Lee and I returned to the motel, we packed up the kids and decided to get a super early start to our destination. Lee was quite heavily medicated so therefore I would have to drive the last leg of the trip to Oklahoma. In retrospect, I never hesitated a second, I had to do whatever it took to get us there safely to start our new life. Lee was asleep most of the time and therefore unable to assist me in finding routes,etc. So therefore I just became very vigilant watching for signs for the interstate highways and by passes, and we arrived safely and punctually. Our dilemma however was not finished.
To be continued. Goodnight folks,
Carol
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