How Far to Hell?
I have uttered the phrase “I’m in hell” or “This is hell” many times, but never did it seem more appropriate than when my husband and I were moving to Pennsylvania.
It has been almost two years since we drove from Mississippi to Pennsylvania. It took us three days to get there, mainly because I was 7 months pregnant and couldn’t drive for very long.
My husband was driving his truck and towing a U-haul trailer. Because of this, we decided we would forgo the shorter mountainous route and would travel East until we reached I-95 and then go North to our new home.
I was driving our van with our then two year old in the back and my ever-growing belly in front of me. To explain how difficult this was for me I must bore you with a few pregnancy details. I am NOT a good pregnant person. I tend to have many complications ranging from pre-eclampsia to gestational diabetes. When I drove my feet would swell and I would have unbelievably painful leg cramps.
We decided that we would only drive six hours a day for three days to make the trip easier on me, three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening. We would stop early, have a nice dinner and retire to a comfortable hotel. Even with all this planning the trip was miserable and painful.
As in the beginning of every long trip, when I pulled out of my mother’s driveway in Mississippi I set the trip odometer in my van. I like to gauge how far I’ve gone and how far I have left to go by it.
Sometime during the second day of our trip I was quickly fading. I knew I had to continue driving but I didn’t want to. My husband and I were using walkie talkies to communicate with each other because we weren’t getting new cell phones until we got to Pennsylvania.
“Honey, I am so tired,” I complained.
“I know you are, but you have to just keep going. We will stop soon, okay?” my husband asked.
“Okay. I can do it.”
So keep going I did, but not with out some serious mental complaining, and cursing, and asking God, WHY???
About that time we took a detour through a quiet country road. We were somewhere in either North Carolina or Virginia. The road was very windy and had a deep gully on the left side and a very high hill to the right. As we rounded a bend I noticed an old gas station in the gully. The paint was peeling and the walls looked as if a strong wind would knock them down. I then noticed the old sign. It had been a Shell gas station but the “S” was gone and the sign, towering high about the old station in big red letters read, “HELL”. For some reason I then looked down at my trip odometer and the mileage read 666. I shit you not. I walkie talkied my husband.
“Honey, apparently I am in hell,” I said.
“Complaining again?” he asked.
When I explained the details of my comment he didn’t believe me.
“Your odometer is NOT 666,” he said.
“It is. I swear! I was so freaked out I started praying,” I exclaimed.
True story.
(So mom, if you are reading this, just FYI – it is exactly 666 miles from your house to HELL.)
It has been almost two years since we drove from Mississippi to Pennsylvania. It took us three days to get there, mainly because I was 7 months pregnant and couldn’t drive for very long.
My husband was driving his truck and towing a U-haul trailer. Because of this, we decided we would forgo the shorter mountainous route and would travel East until we reached I-95 and then go North to our new home.
I was driving our van with our then two year old in the back and my ever-growing belly in front of me. To explain how difficult this was for me I must bore you with a few pregnancy details. I am NOT a good pregnant person. I tend to have many complications ranging from pre-eclampsia to gestational diabetes. When I drove my feet would swell and I would have unbelievably painful leg cramps.
We decided that we would only drive six hours a day for three days to make the trip easier on me, three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening. We would stop early, have a nice dinner and retire to a comfortable hotel. Even with all this planning the trip was miserable and painful.
As in the beginning of every long trip, when I pulled out of my mother’s driveway in Mississippi I set the trip odometer in my van. I like to gauge how far I’ve gone and how far I have left to go by it.
Sometime during the second day of our trip I was quickly fading. I knew I had to continue driving but I didn’t want to. My husband and I were using walkie talkies to communicate with each other because we weren’t getting new cell phones until we got to Pennsylvania.
“Honey, I am so tired,” I complained.
“I know you are, but you have to just keep going. We will stop soon, okay?” my husband asked.
“Okay. I can do it.”
So keep going I did, but not with out some serious mental complaining, and cursing, and asking God, WHY???
About that time we took a detour through a quiet country road. We were somewhere in either North Carolina or Virginia. The road was very windy and had a deep gully on the left side and a very high hill to the right. As we rounded a bend I noticed an old gas station in the gully. The paint was peeling and the walls looked as if a strong wind would knock them down. I then noticed the old sign. It had been a Shell gas station but the “S” was gone and the sign, towering high about the old station in big red letters read, “HELL”. For some reason I then looked down at my trip odometer and the mileage read 666. I shit you not. I walkie talkied my husband.
“Honey, apparently I am in hell,” I said.
“Complaining again?” he asked.
When I explained the details of my comment he didn’t believe me.
“Your odometer is NOT 666,” he said.
“It is. I swear! I was so freaked out I started praying,” I exclaimed.
True story.
(So mom, if you are reading this, just FYI – it is exactly 666 miles from your house to HELL.)
posted by Sherri at 9:56 AM
10 Comments:
Was it worth it?
creepy.....(and also quite funny - in both the ha- ha and the odd way)
See, and I always figured my mom's house WAS Hell. I guess this is where our similarities end, Sherri. (sob)
:-)
(And does your mom read your blog?)
Yeah. Mom, Dad and both sisters read the blog. Kinda limits the material I can use. Hard to vent the deep, dark family secrets! Oh well.
That's the coolest story I've heard in a long time. Wow.
amazing story. and here all this time i thought "hell" was my desk at work...:)
If you've been to hell and back, then you must be in heaven now!
there's a hell michigan and one of my dad's bike clubs (pedal, not motor) bike there and back and they had tshirts made that said 'i've been to hell and back' with a biker on it.
I thought hell was the roach motel where my brother lived (behind the carwash) with his roommate, Mike (who, oddly enough, looked like Jesus Christ). I know you remember that place!
Speaking of the holy spirit... see anymore ghosts over the weekend?
No, I haven't. But I have thought about it constantly and it has given me an idea for a story. I'll post about it tomorrow.
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