Chapter 4: My new found courage.

This is my husband's manual/standard car AKA my latest challenge. 

1 year older & 1 notch more courageous. I'm barely 23 & I'm already noticing a change in myself! =P Alright, maybe it's just a coincidence—either way, I'm not complaining. I still have yet to document about my wonderful Disney World birthday yesterday, but first I want to talk about our drive home from Disney World :) My husband & I didn't end up leaving Downtown Disney until just a little before midnight. We had a 3 hour drive ahead of us & I knew my husband would be tired because:

1. I was tired! We had a lot of fun, but it was a long day in the blazing sun & evening in the pouring rain.

2. He got less sleep than I did the night before & we left for Disney World at 7am in the morning.

We tried many things to keep him AWAKE. We blasted the AC, started singing at the top of our lungs, drank water & ate snacks, I'd pinch his arm if he asked me to, & he'd ocassionally slap himself in the face to try to stay awake =P Well, none of these methods would work for very long. All of a sudden I found myself telling him that I'd drive if he wanted me to. [Did I really just say that?] For a few times he'd respond with, "No, that's ok honey. I'm awake. Thank you though." After offering to drive a couple more times, his response turned into, "Are you sure you want to? Do you feel ready?" Oddly enough, I did feel ready. He gave me such an amazing birthday celebration, the least I could do to say "thank you" was take over the wheel & let him catch a few zzZ's. Out of nowhere I gained some new found courage in conquering the intimidating stick shift! I knew that the drive would be pretty easy because we just had to stay on the freeway for a long time, so there isn't any shifting of gears involved when you're just cruising. The only hard part was getting onto the freeway & getting off of the freeway, which I did last night for the very 1st time! I had already practiced upshifting a few times, but I hadn't practiced downshifting yet, & Robert said I did a good job! As you may already be able to tell, I'm pretty proud of myself :) 

The original plan: Drive the long stretch of freeway & exit before getting close to home so we could switch seats again & I wouldn't have to drive on the streets... However, once I was in the driver seat I kept pep talking myself, going over in my head everything I've read & everything Robert had taught me.

The new plan: I was determined to drive us all the way home! 

The plan was set. My husband was getting some rest & I was getting more confident in my driving by the minute. Everything was panning out just right... until I started getting sleepy =X [Bah humbug! That wasn't supposed to happen!] Robert woke up & I told him about how my sleepy mind started playing tricks on me & made the lines in the road look funny. I'm not even going to try to explain this. Lol. That's when we decided to switch seats again. Darn! But safety first! Right? I told Robert about  how I planned to drive us all the way home because I was confident that I could do it! I swear I would've done it if I hadn't have gotten so sleepy. He smiled & said he believed me :) Good! I just hope this new found courage of mine sticks around so I can hurry up & join the ranks of the those who know how to drive a manual car. Only a small percentage of the population under the age of 50 can drive a stick shift (the percentage is higher for those over the age of 50) & I can't wait to be one of those cool cats! =P