It started out so lovely.  A field trip to General Joe Wheeler’s home.  The kids were well behaved and knew the answers to every question the guides asked.  I just love that about homeschoolers.  Our guide said she had never had a group of kids that knew so much.

His house is amazing.  There are only 5 items in it that are not original.  He served in the Civil War, the Spanish American War and in Congress for years.  His daughter Annie is also fascinating.  There were 4 girls and 2 boys in the Wheeler family and the boys had their own house right outside the main house.  Most of the boys thought that was too cool! 🙂

Our tour guide definitely knew what she was talking about.  She was full of interesting stories and information about the family and the contents of the house.

Then my phone rang;  it was a friend asking if I had heard what was going on.  Evidently they had found a ‘suspicious device’ on a chemical train at  Daikin Plant; a plant that was about 6 miles straight down the road we were on.  More and more people called asking me where we were and had I heard.  Moms had their phones out trying to figure out what to do.  I’ll admit it, I was a bit freaking out.  The main reason is that we heard they were evacuating everyone in a 5 mile radius.  Schools had already been released and MY house was within a 5 mile radius.  And my dog was home.  I knew Keilee would just be wild.  News was sporadic and not always reliable.  It reminded me a bit of that game, “Secret” where you tell the person next to you a secret and it is passed along until it comes back unrecognizable.

My favorite part of the day was when a circle of Homeschool Moms joined hands and prayed.

We continue the tour outside expecting at any moment to hear the sirens go off.  I don’t know what we would have done.  Chemicals are airborne and we were standing outside not that far from the plant.

Then the tour was over and we all decided to go eat lunch in the OTHER direction.  By this time we had heard that they were evacuating within a 25 mile radius and had closed the highway to get home.  So we went to this little restaurant called “Mama Jeans” which was my Mom’s name.  As we were ordering my brother called and said it was 2 Kilos of marijuana and it was all clear.

We were a relieved bunch of Moms and kids and a Dad eating lunch that day.  It made me think though, what would I have done if this had been ‘real’?  If they had evacuated people [which turned out to be untrue, although they did evacuate schools].  I had very little money with me, none of my medicines I take daily, the dog was home alone and there would have been nothing I could have done about it.  It was all very frightening.  It  made me think that maybe we should all be better prepared in case the worse happens.  I think about things like that at times; but I am always at home in my scenario.

What would YOU do if something like that happened?

Feeling thankful,
Homeschool Rocks,
Karen