For the 23rd day of May’s Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome social media challenge, we are asked to share our greatest achievement.

In a nutshell, I’d have to say that my biggest accomplishment thus far would be graduating from college while traveling across the country with two dogs living in a 1983 Volvo sedan. We made it to New Hampshire for graduation and to watch my daughter graduate the same weekend! I’m even finishing a book about that experience!

The book is called, “The Car that Ran on Prayers,” and is currently undergoing a heavy rewrite for religious reasons.

But let me share with you a piece of my draft from when we made it to New Hampshire:

I saw a blue sign on the right side of the road and pulled off just a few yards beyond the sign.
           

WELCOME BIENVENUE TO NEW HAMPSHIRE

            “Live Free or Die”

With tears in my eyes, I snapped a selfie of the sign with me in the forground and the Volvo with the dogs in  it, in the background. A smattering of snow could be seen in the woods by the sign and I smiled.
We made it.

I went back to the car and cried for a moment before checking out the route through New Hampshire to Manchester where the SNHU was located.

I wanted the school I had been attending for the past two years to be my first stop.

I saw the sign from the first freeway we had been on since Florida. The Volvo wasn’t enjoying the speeds, and I wasn’t even attempting to go the speed limit, settling in the slow lane with a verbal prayer to God to keep the car running until the exit by the school.

There were tears in my eyes when I pulled off of that freeway and into the community of Hookset.

Within an hour, we got to the school and I found the library. To make it even more fascinating for me, the library had a dog sculpture in front of it. Perfect.

I took a little time to walk the campus and procure a student ID for my use before heading to the athetic building to purchase a facility membership. I figured since I was going to be in the area for at least the next month, I could shower and swim at the college, then do my homework at the library.

Almost like a real college student.

The yellow laminated card with the black letters indicating Southern New Hampshire University Athletic Department Facility Membership and my name in blue ballpoint ink with an expiration date that was the date of my graduation reminded me that I would be walking in exactly one month from the day I arrived in New Hampshire.