a scary story

As you know, Dusty and I went to the State Fair in North Carolina last weekend!

We had a lot of fun.
We spent way too much money doing all the ridiculous things you do at fairs.
Eating fried foods, riding ferris wheels, playing games where you end up paying like $50 trying to win a $5 stuffed animal...but we had a blast!

Deep-fried 3 Musketeers Bar!

We even had a caricature done, which I've always wanted to do!!
It's kind of my new favorite thing.

The high swings was another highlight. :)

But what you DON'T know, is that we almost never made it to the fair.
We almost died, guys. It was going to happen.

In true pre-Halloween fashion, a rather cryptic tale was about to unfold as we made our way to the town of the fairgrounds...

On Friday night, we began our long drive to Raleigh, North Carolina.
The drive to our Red Roof Inn was supposed to be about 2 1/2 to 3 hours, so we leisurely began our drive and enjoyed the scenery on our way.

About 3 hours later, it was dark out, but we were getting close. We had decided to go the Cheesecake Factory for dinner, because it's one of our favorite places! And we hardly ever get to go there, because there aren't any close to Lynchburg.
We wanted to stop and check in at the hotel first, then go to dinner. But the resident evil had other plans.

We started going down a couple of side streets, and I kept looking down at my phone because it said we were less than a mile away.
But I started getting a very, very icky feeling.
We were going down a super dark street, and our last turn ended up being into some kind of odd corporate backlot.
We drove a little ways down, and sure enough, we were going down the Food Lion Distribution Center backlot.

Have you ever heard that rumor that GPS systems are sometimes high-jacked by killers that lure you into the middle of nowhere at night to kill you?

Well, I have. I really have.

It was so dark, and I just went into full-on panic mode.
"Turn around, Dusty. Turn around. Turn around now, I don't like this, this is awful, this is not our hotel."

Dusty, being the cool cucumber, soothed my fears and suggested that maybe it was just some kind of shortcut and that our hotel was on the other side if we kept driving through. There were trees all around us, so it was hard to see where the road led.
I started cursing every horror movie I've ever seen, but agreed that he was probably the logical one in this situation.

We kept driving, and as our lights slowly began to unveil what was ahead, we saw that the road dead-ended into a vast expanse of woods.
In the midst of the woods was a big, black truck, backed into the trees, facing us.

GET ME OUT OF HERE! NOW! NOW!

I don't think I've ever screamed that loud. It was a frantic, half-laugh kind of maniacal scream.
Dusty didn't even bother turning around, he just threw the car in reverse and started driving as fast as possible.
I just stared ahead at the face of that evil black truck. "Dusty...I swear...if his lights turn on...."
Dusty was scared now too, I could tell. Probably because I was freaking him out, because I knew how these stories ended in all the movies.

We finally turned around, and were just rambling our fear and anger at Google maps. What was happening?
Dusty sat, concentrating on the phone map, trying to find the Red Roof Inn the old fashioned way with his eyeballs.

About five minutes go by, and Dusty has found where we're supposed to go. We weren't even close. We were nearly 30 miles off.
Frustrated, hungry, and scared almost pee-less, we decided to go the mall and go to Cheesecake Factory first which was also about 20-25 miles away.
Somewhat relieved, I glanced in the rear-view mirror.

That's when I noticed the truck's lights had turned on. 

"Car. CAR! It's HIM! OMG IT'S HIM!"

The big black truck was speeding toward us, and Dusty flew out of that street faster than a nun could hail Mary.

I don't think I've been that scared in a really, really long time.
We managed to calm down enough to enjoy our dinner, but I really thought we might die that night.

Then, to make matters worse, after we left dinner around 10pm, we ran into some kind of crazy drug deal in the giant parking structure.

Life is short, guys. Really short. I wish I learned something from all of this to give some sort of wise advice but all I can really say is, use a real map. Pay attention to the map. Don't ever stay at cheap motels. Don't ever go to any kind of corporate back lot after dark. Or ever, maybe.
Happy Halloween :)

What are you guys doing for Halloween!?

Until next time,
Cait