Even Burt Reynolds

This past summer, I went on a road trip with two of my best friends.  Ten days, 5 different locations.  The trip took us down south into Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.  I have done road trips before, but nothing this intense.  On the third day of our trip, we arrived at Cape Lookout, North Carolina.  It was 100% humidity and approximately 1000 degrees, well, it felt like it was.  After walking half a mile in the sun and sand and carrying heavy backpacks, we were all exhausted and suffering from heat stress.  After cooling off, we had a lovely time that night.  However, the next day held much of the same from the day before.  Again with 100% humidity and with very high temperatures, the ferry ride back to shore was unpleasant at best.  We arrived at the car and my friend promptly vomited from heat exhaustion.  I had experience some anxiety and fear while traveling, but the reality hit me like a ton of bricks then;  We were over 700 mile away from home and had never done anything like this before.  While calling my mother, I told my friends, "I'm going to cry now and I hope you're OK with that."  And I did.  I cried and cried.  I even began hyperventilating because I was sobbing so hard.  We drove to a hotel to spend the night and I just laid in the back and cried.  I couldn't stop.  I never expected my anxiety and emotions to get the better of me like they did.  I think that moment, and the moments to follow, really started my struggle with anxiety and keeping my emotions and thoughts in check.