The morning after I arrived in Ohio I headed to my mother's house. I let myself in after a knock to let her know I was there, and she greeted me in the living room with a hug.

"I was just about to go visit Grandma. She's not doing too good,” Mom said as she let me go.

"Then let's both go," I said.

Grandma was still in bed when we arrived. Mom made her some tea and I sat with her and we talked for a long time, sharing memories, pictures of my children and that of my cousin's new baby, and generally just everything that came to mind. It had been a long time, too long, since we had done something like this. But I kept having a nagging feeling that something was going to happen soon. It was near the end of the visit it really hit me hard.

"Samantha, I'm really proud of you," Grandma said.

"Thanks, Grandma," I replied.

"I was really worried about you for awhile there, Sammy," her voice was quiet from fatigue. "You got pregnant so young. But you really pulled yourself together and look at you now," she smiled weakly at me. "You should have gone into teaching, you're very good with kids."

I had to swallow back tears before I could speak. "Thank you, Grandma."

The rest of the week went by quickly. I kept busy rearranging furniture, packing up some of Lance's things to ship back to him, painting and generally turning my house back into my house. I was getting ready to leave in the morning when Mom called.

"Grandma's back in the hospital,” she told me.

I sighed, the feeling of unease bubbling back up again. "What happened this time?"

"She went to the doctor for tests, and fainted when they went to take blood. They rushed her in and they're admitting her."

"I'm sorry, Mom," I whispered.

“Thanks honey, I've got to run, the doctor just came in,” Mom said. We exchanged farewells.

Morning came too early. We started by waking up when we had planned on leaving. We rushed about, tossing our suitcases into her car, making sure everything was taken care of. Finally, we piled into our cars, dropped off my rental and went to breakfast. We were like a couple of school girls, excited over the Event ahead of us.

We were soon talking and singing along to the radio as we started our trip westward.

Ohio wasn't exciting, having lived there for most of my life, though we had a great giggle over mile marker sixty-nine being in Wood county.

“I've never seen you so carefree," Sandy said as we neared the state line.

"I haven't felt this young in a long time." I placed my sunglasses over my eyes. "This is my first time taking a few days to myself in years, and I decided that for this week, I'm not going to worry about a thing except having a good time."

"When was the last time you felt like this then?" She asked. I could tell she was getting into her psychology mode and would over-analyze anything I said. I thought for a few moments.

"Before Celine," I finally answered. When we reached the state line, we got out the cameras, taking pictures of the toll booth (for the time) and the Indiana state sign. We giggled as we drove through into Indiana. I kicked off my shoes.

"I'm barefoot! In Indiana!" I squealed.

"I've never been this far west!" Sandy exclaimed.

Indiana went somewhat quickly. We stopped for lunch at a rest stop, but other than that we kept on going. Kept on talking and singing loudly to the music we had brought, and just enjoying the trip. We reached construction just outside of Gary, Indiana. I burst into a grin and changed the song to one I had put on the ipod just for this moment and burst into song. Sandy laughed, shaking her head for a second, but by the end of the song, we were both singing.

"Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary Indiana, My home sweet home!"

"God, we're such dorks," she said as the song ended.

Sandy turned the music down a little as she concentrated on driving. I got quiet and watched the cement wall and orange barrels go by. The construction lasted until we were leaving Chicago. We were pulling into a rest stop for a bathroom break and change of drivers when Mom called.

"Hi Mom," I answered.

"Hi sweetie. Where are you?"

"Somewhere west of Chicago."

"Oh, I love Chicago."

"It was full of construction. Beige walls and construction," I replied.

"I just wanted to see where you were. You guys are really booking it,” Mom told me.

"We're not really stopping to see anything while it's still toll roads."

"Makes sense," Mom agreed.

"Right. I'm going to let you go, I need to use the girl's room and then it's my turn to drive. Iowa's going to be interesting."

"Is that where all the flooding was?"

"Yes," I replied. Iowa had just had the worst flooding in over a decade the week before. I had kept the weather channel on while I was home, keeping up with the news.

"Be careful, sweetie." Mom advised.

"I will. Take care of Grandma. Give her a hug for me." We exchanged good-byes, and after a run to the bathroom, I met Sandy at the car. She tossed me her keys and I got behind the wheel for my shift.

Illinois was flat. And mostly farmland from what I could see. Sandy and I got quieter, the long hours in the car were starting to catch up with us. She pulled out a book and started reading and I turned the music down more, until it was more of a background noise. I relaxed into my favorite driving pose and started singing along softly under my breath.

"I'm surprised we haven't heard more JC songs," Sandy commented a while later.

"Meh," I responded. I saw her glance up out of the corner of my eye.

"You're not a fan?" she sounded surprised.

"I am. He's my husband, how can I not be? But that's just it - he's my husband," I try to explain. "His music is memories for me."

"Oh," Sandy replied. I hoped she understood what I was trying to explain.

We crossed over the Mississippi River into Iowa. Sandy got the photos of the river and state sign.

"Looks like Mississippi with less trees," I commented after a few miles.

"You've been to Mississippi?" Sandy sounded surprised.

"Lived there for a few months. After the twins were born."

"Oh."

After using the restroom and checking the weather map and the inside of the next rest stop, we ventured out the backside. There was a field of wildflowers and long grass. We walked around a little, taking photos of the beauty there before settling on a bench.

"There is a perk to being married to Josh," I stated. I was scrolling through my ipod's library for one of the special tracks Josh made just for me.

"Oh?" Sandy asked, looking up from the flowers.

"Yeah. I get exclusive songs," I answered. I handed her the device, set to play an unplugged version of You Ruined Me. Just Josh and the piano. I sat back and watched Sandy as she listened to it.

"That's really beautiful," she reviewed, handing the player back.

"Yeah," I agreed. "It's one of my favorites. But that might be because of what it's about.”

"Is he going to release anything new soon?" she asked.

I shook my head, "No, he's giving it all to ABDC right now. He's still writes the occasional song, but he's not focused on that. Which is a shame since that album he was working on was going to be brilliant," I sighed.

"You've heard it?"

"He let me hear the ones he had finished. He's such a perfectionist that way. He won't let anyone listen to it if it's not finished. But that album, Sandy, was beyond beautiful," I praised.

"I'm sure it was."

I stood up and stretched. "Well, as fun as this is, we didn't drive to the middle of Iowa to delve into the psyche of my husband," I replied.

"Sorry," Sandy apologized.

"Eh, I'm sure we'd both be rather interesting studies," I assured, heading back into the building.

"It is rather interesting, the celebrity factor."

"They're just people that are put onto pedestals by other people."

"True. And then there are those people who want to be famous."

"I didn't want to be famous," I pointed out. “I just fell in love.”

"I wasn't talking about you. But you did know what you getting into when you married JC, didn't you?"

"For the most part, yes. As long as the paparazzi don't go after my kids, I don't care about the celebrity factor. You have to ignore that stuff and focus on reality," I explained.

"Makes sense," Sandy said.

It wasn't long after we left the rest stop we started to see the flooding. I maneuvered into the right lane and Sandy rolled down her window and took pictures with our cameras. We were stunned at the sheer amount of water that was present. It was just everywhere you could see from the edge of the road beyond. It was like Iowa was a lake with buildings and shrubbery islands. A lighter moment was the adult store afloat in a parking lot lake.

Des Moines was rather deserted and still very much covered in puddles. It felt quite odd to drive through a town that felt so deserted.

The first rest stop after Des Moines I pulled into and we switched seats again. Sandy was going to take us to Omaha, another two hours away, but our half-way point and where we were going to stop for the night.

Western Iowa was really very pretty. Long grass swayed in the breeze of the cars as we went past. The sky started to cloud up in late afternoon, and we could feel the temperature dropping with each mile.

"I think it's going to rain," Sandy said.

"Yeah, I think you're right," I said, staring up at the dark clouds ahead of us.

We continued a few more miles before the rain started. And then it started to get really dark, with forks of lightning every couple of minutes. And it started to hail. Sandy slowed way down as the visibility was cut literally in half almost instantly. I got out my phone and called Josh.

"Are you at home?" I asked as soon as he picked up.

"No, I'm at the studio, why?"

"Nothing. I'll call you back, okay? Love you," I answered and hung up before waiting for his reply. I hit the next number on my speed dial - Lance.

"D'ya have access to a tv?"

"Hello to you, and yes."

"Sandy and I are in western Iowa and hitting some weather. Could check it for me?"

"Sure, give me a sec." There was a few seconds of silence before the tv kicked on.

"Okay, got weather channel on, waiting for it to go to the radar," Lance updated me.

I saw something out of the corner of my eye and I focused my attention to the area. There was a line of funnel clouds directly to our northwest. I counted about four during the brief flash from the lightning.

"Oh. My. God. Sandy....." I gestured towards the line of tornadoes.

"What? Sam, what's going on?" Lance asked. Another flash of lightning directly behind the tornadoes outlined them perfectly. There was definitely four of them in a row, and they were definitely tornadoes.

"Oh my god!" Sandy started to freak out.

"Sandy, keep driving! They're going away from us I think," I said as another flash lit up the world. The tornadoes didn't seem any closer than the last few times and I relaxed slightly, but was keeping alert.

"Sam!" Lance sounded worried.

"We're fine. The tornadoes are going the other way," I replied.

"The...Sam, you should get off the road if it's that bad!"

"There's nowhere to go! Trust me, we'll be pulling over whenever we get to an exit. They really need more of them in Iowa," I complained.

"Radar's on. There's a storm covering the western two counties," he said. "It's going pretty fast, I think.”

The lightning got even worse, if possible. It was almost a continual flow of light as the lightning just kept coming.

"Oh. My. God," I said again, dragging it out a little. The lightning was still going as I finished the sentence. "Lance, I've got to go, I'll call you back when I can!" I said quickly and hung up.

I took a deep breath and tried to wrestle my fears down enough to handle this. It was only a storm, after all.

We finally reached an exit after about an hour. But the only motel in the small town was booked. Back into the car we got and continued westward. Josh called as we got back on the interstate.

"Hey," I answered.

"Sam," Josh sounded relieved.

"We're fine. I need to go, I'm helping Sandy drive. I'll call you when we get to a hotel, okay?"

"Fine. Be careful," he answered. We hung up and I resumed staring out into the pitch black, waiting for road signs to appear while Sandy concentrated on keeping the car in the lane.

We eventually made it into Nebraska, and Omaha appeared to be deserted. Not surprising as it was nearing eleven at night. We kept going to the first exit just outside of Omaha and thankfully, the hotel had a vacancy. We rode up to our room in silence, both of us exhausted from the long day on the road. We quietly got changed and ready for bed. Sandy had called her parents and hung up already before I got out of the bathroom. She turned the tv on the weather channel and muted it while I called Josh.

"Hey," I said when he picked up. "We're in a hotel outside of Omaha."

"Good. I was worried about you," he told me.

"I know. I'm sorry about earlier, I needed someone who could tell me what we were up against."

"Oh my god, Sam, somebody died in that storm!" Sandy said from the other bed. I turned to face the tv and read the text on the bottom of the screen.

"That's horrible." I turned back to facing the wall and quietly told Josh what was going on.

"Sam, you really sure you need to do this? Something could have happened to you tonight."

"Yeah, I do need to do this. 'This' is what I should have done six years ago instead of jumping into a relationship with you like I did. Maybe when I get back to L.A. I'll know who I am." I yawned.

"I'll let you go so you can sleep," Josh offered.

"Okay. I'll call or text when we reach SLC. Love you," I made a quiet kissy sound into the phone and was rewarded with his laugh. I smiled sleepily as he returned the sentiment and we hung up. I glanced over at Sandy to find her fast asleep already. I called Lance and let him know we were fine in a hotel and thanked him for his help before climbing into my bed and going to sleep myself.

Nebraska went slowly. We stopped somewhere in the middle to switch drivers again, and we were pretty subdued compared to the day before. The terror over the storm had taken a bit of a toll on us. We had just gotten lunch at this little gas station/pit stop place called Fat Dogs. It made us giggle because there was a sign above the store name that proclaimed "You are Nowhere".

It got windy and cold as we headed into Wyoming. We rolled the windows up and I did my best to keep the car in the lane as the strong winds gusted.

"Look!" Sandy shouted suddenly, pointing at the road ahead of us. A lone tumbleweed blew across the road. We both just started laughing and the good feeling from the day before started to fill the car again.

We switched drivers again at a memorial to Lincoln that commemorating the interstate, known as "The Lincoln Highway.”

We came around a bend in the interstate and we could see the Rocky mountains. We thought they were a cloud at first, until several miles later they hadn't moved at all. And when the sun set on them hours and most of a state later, they turned purple.

It was dark when we finally entered Utah, and we still had about a hundred miles to go. Sandy was getting tired and cranky as we reached the complex mess of highways that wound around through the mountains into the city below. It was near eleven when we finally got off the highway and pulled into the hotel.

Sandy stayed in the car while I went to go get us checked in. I walked up to the counter and gave them my name. They looked up my reservation, and told me the price. I pulled out my wallet and got the money out.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Chasez, but we don't take cash."

"Will you take a check?" I asked.

"I'm sorry. We can only take credit cards."

"I don't do credit cards at hotels, you all give me a hard time over it because they're in my husband's name," I remarked snidely.

"Then perhaps your husband should join us here?"

"He's not here," I answered, going through my wallet and pulling out my debit card. "This has a MasterCard sticker on it. Will you take that?"

"I'm sorry, but we only take credit cards."

"I want to speak to your manager," I answered. I waited while he got his manager.

"What's the problem, Miss?"

"You only take credit cards," I pointed out.

"Yes, that's right. We only will accept credit cards, for security reasons."

"All I have in my name is a MasterCard debit card," I offered him my card.

"I'm afraid I can't accept that," he said. I sighed.

"Fine. I'll find somewhere else to stay then," I said, packing my things back into my purse and walking back to the car.

"What's wrong?" Sandy asked as I slammed the door.

"They won't take cash or my card," I said, grinding my teeth. "We don't have anywhere to stay."

Sandy looked slightly panicked, and I grabbed the tourism book from the glove compartment and handed it to her. "Look for somewhere for us to stay," I told her as I got my phone out and called Josh.

I relayed what transpired to Josh and heard him get his laptop out and start clicking away on it. Between the two of them, we found a hotel that accepted cash and had available rooms. I thanked Josh for his help and we headed over to the new hotel and checked in.

Salt Lake City was fun. Our first day was full of finding the college and generally just driving around the city, getting a feel for it. On Sunday we went to the zoo, and had a blast of a time walking the whole place and taking pictures of animals.

The sixteenth was a Monday. Sandy and I went to the college together. She went in for her interview and I wandered around the campus a little, before stopping at a little cafe just off the campus. I settled into a booth near the window and ordered a soda and sat back with a book I had brought, but spent more time people watching.

Once Sandy was done with her interview, I met her back on the campus. We headed back to the hotel for her to change and grab a bite to eat. Then we decided to see a movie that and chose Kung Fu Panda.

We went to the Great Salt Lake and got a bit lost at first, and tried to trek across the shoreline where there wasn't any sand, though I did get some fantastic pictures of Sandy looking lost along the long stretch of nothing. We eventually went down the stretch of beach where there was sand.

"Oh! It's warm, like pee!" Sandy said as she wadded out into the water a little. With that, we both lost it, and I doubled over giggling. We eventually headed back and visited the gift shop. I ended up buying two magnets that read "My friends went to Utah and all they got me was this lousy magnet!" and planned on sticking one on Lance's fridge and seeing how long it would take him to notice.

Wednesday was my last full day in Salt Lake City and we visited the planetarium. We walked around, playing with things and reading the captions on the photos. I took photos of everything, knowing that Aydin and Lance would go crazy over it all. There was also a Moonscape and Mars landscape that you could walk through, and we took photos of each other delivering the leftover pizza from lunch on Mars. Eventually we hit the gift shop, where I spent an eternity trying to figure out what to get who, because not only did they have space related things, they had multitude of awesome toys and gadgets.

Thursday morning was spent in the hotel as I packed up everything and got ready to leave. I was taking the bus back to L.A. Once I was packed, we went to lunch at the IHOP down the road and met up with her cousin, whom was very nice, and we went back to the hotel for the few hours that were left before I had to leave.

On the bus, I sat back with my iPod and let the gentle rocking of the bus eventually lull me into sleep. I awoke around midnight, as we were pulling out of the stop before the transfer. I got out my reading light and read for the last hour before we reached Vegas.

In Vegas, I had two hours before the next bus, and after grabbing a snack, I hung out, listening for the announcement of my bus.

Once back on the bus, I let myself doze off again, waking up again just before we pulled into the station in L.A. I stretched and was glad that I didn't have a seat mate for this leg of the trip. I fished out my sunglasses and put everything back into my bag as we pulled in and everyone started getting off. I grabbed my suitcase and extra duffel bag and lugged them into the lobby, surprised to find Josh was sitting in a chair, his head propped against his hand as he slept. I went up to him and kicked his foot gently, startling him out of sleep.

"Hey Sleepy," I greeted him. He stood up and pulled me into a hug. I hugged him back.

"I missed you," he whispered into my ear.

"I missed you too," I whispered back as he pulled out of the hug and held me at an arm's length and he looked me over.

"It was only a few weeks," I said.

"It's been a long few weeks. Ready to go home?" he asked. I nodded and he picked up my bags and I followed him to the car, dragging my suitcase on its wheels.