Road Trip part 1

The first day was great. I had to see the oral surgeon at 8am to make sure that my mouth was healing properly. I had just had my wisdom tooth pulled 5 days earlier. We got on the road and everything was great. Two and half hours into our trip our brand new truck started to shake. We were on I-95 just 6 miles from Fayetteville, NC. Luckily the truck came with 24hr roadside assistance. We waited for 1 hour for a cab to come and get the kids and myself. Poor Dh had to wait for almost 2hrs in 107º temps for the tow truck. We get the truck to the closest Jeep dealership and wait. The $18 part that we need isn't in stock, but it will hopefully be there the next morning on their truck. Want to hear the funny thing? It was coming from our hometown. Chrysler customer service did provide us a rental car for 2 days. It only took 2 calls.

We took the chance to find a decent hotel that had a pool. We ended up at Super 8 and it was a great place!! They were very nice and they didn't charge me for the extra person in the room. The kids got to get some of their energy out. We had only sat at the dealership for 4 hours. They were great!! We went to our favorite place to eat Cracker Barrel and really enjoyed our dinner.
The next day we had the opportunity to visit the Airborne &Special Operations Museum. This was an amazing museum. They had a simulator that was fantastic!! We got to experience riding in a helicopter, Humvee, motorcycle, skiing and jumping out of an airplane. Basically everything that a Special Ops solider would do. Our only complaint was that it was way too short. I personally am considering skydiving now. It wasn't as scary as I thought that it would be. The exhibits were amazing. They had various uniforms from almost every war or battle since the paratroopers were formed.

One of my favorite things was all the coins and patches. There was a plane overhead with a paratrooper getting reading to jump, battle scenes from some of the wars, special effects that would blow you away. This was all up Tracker's alley. He was in 7th Heaven. He loved everything. We found an airplane that was actually built on scene. It was amazing. They would break it down and put it back together once on the ground. It was a WACO CG-4A Glider. It was very neat. Tracker wanted one for himself. LOL.I was just in awe and emotional when it came to the events that I can remember. The first Gulf War and of course the war that is going on right now. I went to college with a couple of Marines that were apart of the first war. I know men that are currently serving. It was just very emotional for me to see those exhibits.

The highlight of the entire visit was talking with an Army Ranger who just returned from his 3rd tour of duty in the Middle East. We were commenting on the heat and he said that he never thought that he would be happy for temps in the upper 90s. He said that he never really complains too much about the heat anymore. I learned that with all of their gear they are carrying an extra 100-150 pounds. Can you imagine??


Here are some more pictures from our visit. Please excuse the blurry pictures. My camera decided that it need to take a vacation as well.