Arizona Adventure - Part One

Our trip to Arizona was pure magic. We did not see the Grand Canyon. But we definitely had an adventure. (I wish I could tell it to you like Timmy tells it, complete with sound effects and dramatic vocal inflections, because it is a little hard to truly convey how adventurous our weekend was.)

I learned several things this weekend. First, I would not make a good photojournalist. Second, dry heat is not any better than humid heat, end of story. Thirdly, Timmy is the perfect husband. (Ok, so I already knew that one. But I like re-learning things.)

So lets start at the beginning. I left work early on Thursday so that we would have plenty of time to catch our flight out of Milwaukee at 7PM. It wasn't until we were at the terminal, happily settling into our seats, that we noticed the dark, dark skies. It started pouring. And then it began, the severe thunderstom that successfully shut down the entire Milwaukee airport. And when I say severe, I mean insanely terrifying. I have never-not-once ever seen a storm to match this one. Our flight was cancelled. We rebooked for early Friday morning and left the airport in search of a hotel.

The first hotel we found was completely full, and it was as we were sitting in the parking lot, debating our next plan of action, that the storm began to increase in its fury. Sheets of rain began to circle our car, and huge cracks of lightning combined with fantastic booms of thunder. After one especially fabulous boom, a sizzle of lightning lit up the sky, and then every single light around us went out. It was so dark. I panicked, "WE ARE GOING TO DIE!". Tim commented that he expected a Tyrannosaurus Rex to appear at any moment. (Thank you, Jurassic Park.) Suddenly finding a hotel seemed much more urgent. Our GPS found another one, only five minutes away.

But, as we started driving, we quickly realized that the roads were flooding. The rain was not relenting, and it streaked over our windshield as  quickly as our wipers cleared it off. And then we found, with increasing despair, that we seemed to be on an "island", and every single street that offered an opportunity to escape the madness was flooded in deep swirling water. There were people standing waist deep in the streets, shouting at us to turn around. Huge chunks of concrete floated by our car, and sewers were spouting up water like fountains. Police cars were everywhere, creating road blocks with their sirens blaring. It was if the streets of Milwaukee had turned into rivers, we were starring in a horror film, and there was no escape...

I hid my face in my arms and begged Timmy to please save us.

Tim did save us, and he ended up flooring it through a flooded street. (He later admitted that he enjoyed that part a good deal. I did not.)

Two hours later, yes two hours later, we finally made it to a hotel. This hotel was, seriously, less than a mile from the airport. It was dirty and smelly, but it was dry and safe. (Well, I wasn't sure how SAFE it was, so I blocked the door with our suitcases just in case.)

Outside, the storm raged on.

And it wasn't until the next morning that I realized it. As I was sadly standing at the elevator I noticed a pile of Wisconsin State Fair brochures and noted that I should have been waking up to Arizona, not a bunch of brochures with cows on them. I turned on my camera to take a picture...

And that is when I realized that I would not make a good photojournalist. At the first sign of danger, I scream and hide, forgetting all about my camera. And so, I have absolutely no pictures to document our night of terror...

Shortly after, we received an automated call, letting us know that our morning flight had been canceled, too. The next flight leaving Milwaukee was at 3PM Saturday night…

*to be continued*