Life is never ordinary for the Governale family and our trip to North Carolina was no exception! After a seemingly unending 8+ hour flight with a 4 year old who has inexplicably developed bad plane sickness within the last year (“Mommy, the plane is yucky” was the most heard sentence during the flight, followed closely by “Are we there yet?”), I was looking forward to a bit of relaxation. Unfortunately, that wasn’t in the cards as we drove right into the largest tornado system the state has seen since the 1980s’. Suddenly, the sky went pitch black and we navigated through torrential rain, quarter-sized hail, howling winds and impassable roads from flash flooding. After taking shelter in an Exxon gas station, we carefully made our way home to the tune of emergency messages on the radio urging us to seek cover immediately which was a slight problem considering we were still 20 minutes from home. Fortunately, no further funnels developed although the clouds were threatening to reach the ground. Sadly, a twister touched down about 5 minutes from my parents’ home, causing huge damage with large trees uprooted, roofs smashed and debris everywhere. We’re very grateful that nobody was injured nearby but others were not so lucky as the storms caused dozens of deaths in North Carolina alone. While we count our blessings, I’d encourage people to donate to the American Red Cross http://www.redcross.org/ which is helping to rebuild homes.
Menacing skies in Raleigh
p.s. If you know of a remedy for plane sickness, please drop me a note. I’ve tried everything from acupuncture bands to homeopathic drops but nothing seems to work for poor Sophia!
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