Turkey Day Takeover

Two weeks ago my friend from back home, Sara, messaged me and asked me what my plans were for thanksgiving and since this was my first year post divorce and not my year to have won the custody roulette for the holidays my answer to her was quite simply....I got nothing. I had not made a single plan....had not so much as even thought about what I might do.I just knew that for 10 days I didn't have to be a mom (which is really weird in itself). So given that I had nothing planned and she had nothing planned...the idea for Turkey Day Takeover was some how formed.  The idea was simple really.....two old friends (I have known this chick for 16 years of my life but since life happens we haven't really hung out in almost 11).....two new fur friends (both of our dogs were dragged on the adventure).....4 days......open road. The rules were even simpler....we were not allowed to plan anything and the only thing that we HAD to do was make it to her moms house on Thursday for thanksgiving because she was awesome enough to cook for us.

So Wednesday Sara drove four hours to my house.....she walks in and with enthusiasm that only comes from adrenalin and too much caffeine says "I say we go ahead and hit the road!!".......with panic in my eyes I started throwing stuff in a bag....I think she could tell that I was slightly freaked out  because eventually she said we could go ahead and wait until the morning. Whew! Thursday, however, we woke up and hit the road.....we drove around through Austin (I freaking love that city).....and we made it to Saras moms house somewhere around 2 that afternoon....had a freaking AWESOME dinner for thanksgiving then got to bed pretty early. Friday morning we set out for a place we heard about called Enchanted Rock (if you have never heard of it you should totally check it out....because it really is THAT awesome)....this place could very easily qualify as the coolest place I have ever seen!!! We stopped and bought a tent with plans on camping out at this place. When we got there we waited in what felt like the longest line ever just to get inside the park. When we finally got in we found out that apparently if you want to camp at this awesome place you have to plan a year ahead (looks like I won't ever be camping there cause I can't even plan a month ahead.) Once we finally parked we put the pups on leashes....threw some stuff in our backpacks and set out to hike up the side of this thing to the summit which I am told is about 425 ft. high......but if you ask me felt more like 5425 ft. high....pretty sure I had to stop no less then five times before we reached the top and had it not been for Sara I would have turned around about half way up and called it a day, but she refused to let me give up. So we finally made it to the top and the view was absolutely unbelievable. I was personally perfectly content with the fact that we made it to the top, but Sara....oh my sweet adventurous souled friend.....she wanted to go in the caves......now there are a few things you should know first.....

1. It was currently 4 o'clock and it gets dark around 6

2. I was not in hiking boots I wasn't even in walk up the side of a huge rock shoes....I was in TOMS

3. We had two SMALL dogs on leashes

4. Sara wasn't taking no for an answer

She felt like we needed to go down a different way then we came up. I won't even try to paint the perfect picture of what this meant exactly because I will fail miserably....Just know that where we were venturing, scaling, squatting, jumping and climbing the only people we saw had climbing gear while we had backpacks and two small dogs. Nothing in either backpack put together in any combination could have sustained life for any amount of time. There were times on this hour and half decent that my dog had to be zipped completely in my backpack so she could be handed up or down to Sara just so she and I might make it out alive. I really wish that was an exaggeration. The dog by the way put up absolutely zero protest I am certain she understood the severity of the situation :-) Since I wasn't wearing hiking boots and many, many times we couldn't see what was ahead of us or what our next move should be I let Sara go ahead of me and she would say things like "Yeah Kass come on it looks grreeeatt" or "This is it we are almost there" then I would get there and it was in NO way great or were we any where close to being almost anywhere. I cried exactly twice and almost pushed Sara off the edge more then that. I kept telling her and was pretty convinced myself that we were getting really really close to ending up on the TV show  I should not have survived. But every time I wanted to give up Sara would tell me to take a deep breath and reassure me that we totally had this because frankly there wasn't another option we literally either kept going or hoped that someone would look for us on Monday. When we finally made it to the bottom of the rock and were finally on the trail....the soles of my shoes were nearly ripped completely off and I was more thankful then I had ever been, but as I looked back at that rock I could NOT believe I made it to the top of that thing much less made it down the cliff side. If it had not been for Sara I would have given up no less then a dozen times. Once we made it down I wanted to find out where we were and get to the car as soon as I could....but Sara....oh Sara....wanted to hike these trails and explore everything like we had unlimited day light or at the very least a flashlight (which we actually did....four of them to be exact.....each one of them in the truck.) We probably hiked for at least 45 minutes by the moon light in the heart of the Texas wilderness. Can I just say that after that five hour excursion I was so freaking happy to see the truck again. We ended up back at Saras moms house for the night since there was no camping. I could not wait to take a shower and climb in bed after that day, but it was by far one of the coolest experiences of my life.  

Saturday morning Sara wakes me up at 6 in the morning and says in the most normal, laid back, matter of fact, no big deal at all way....."we need to hurry and hit the road if we are going to make it to Mexico today"........."Ummm what? Sara I really don't feel like this is a good idea....Mexico isn't really a day trip and I have to be a mom again tomorrow" In my head I am trying to process this information before coffee and all I am really thinking is there isn't any room for error in this operation. Fine Sara says....if you want to go home I will take you home but don't expect me to hang out it is Saturday and I am not really in to just sitting around. She gave me exactly 4 minutes and 29 seconds to throw my stuff in a bag and get in the truck. We pull out of her moms driveway and she says "look I promise to have you home in time to get your kids....I mean I could understand if it was Sunday already but it is barely Saturday we have plenty of time. Then she threw in the bomb....she said "come on if I take you home I definitely wont be able to go." So with that when we reached the fork in the road where left was home and right was Mexico we took a right. We drove all the way down to the border cruising through all the towns along the way. We found this guy that has a sign in his yard claiming that he is a peyote dealer....we had to get the scoop on this guy....so we stopped at the gas station next to it and actually met the guys brother in law. Turns out if you are at least 1/4 Indian and a member of the church you can legally buy peyote. The brother in law asked what we were doing down there and I think I kinda looked at Sara like "I have no freaking idea so you go ahead and take this one" .....he asked if we wanted advice and more or less urged us not to cross the border. At this point I am thinking umm don't worry dude I mean I have to draw the line somewhere and I am thinking a literal line of a border seems like a pretty good place to start. So we drove around checking out this border town before deciding on heading back, but the plan was to drive back up the coast.....we are driving.....and driving........and driving and all of a sudden I am like "Sara I really feel like we missed our turn it looks like we are headed straight for the ocean"....."No we are still going north it isn't like we are just going to run out of road"........no sooner did she say that did we run out of road.....straight into the ocean. "Well if we are at the ocean we are at least getting out of the car" So we did....and we walked the dogs by the ocean the same day we went to the border.....freaking crazy!!!

We were in the car for a total of 15 hours just on Saturday. We drove 1000 plus miles all over the state of Texas. By the end of the trip I was so freaking ready to be home, but when we got home I didn't want it to end. It was without a doubt the coolest road trip I have ever been on and I am pretty darn thankful to my sweet adventurous friend Sara for making it happen and for not letting me give up or go home. I did things I seriously never thought I could do.....saw things that I will remember forever.....laughed until I peed my pants just a little.....and while we didn't end up on a TV show....we did create some stories to add to the files of life....some of them will no doubt be told over and over. Which means Turkey Day Takeover was, in my book at least, a huge success!