Saturday, April 16, 2011

Sometimes, you just gotta get lost.

Have you ever felt the need to just get away from it all, but don't really have the money to go on a vacation?  Do what we do. GET LOST. 

Literally, for 1 day.   Seven and a half years ago when I was taking care of Daddy,  I was so exhausted, mentally, physically and emotionally.   I got my brother to take care of Daddy for one day while my sister and I hit the road.  We had a travel travel game with a pop dice in it. You pressed on the bubble and it flipped the dice for us. Whenever we can to an intersection, we'd pop the dice and divide up the turns according to how many choices we had.   If we were at a four way, then 1-2 meant we turned left.  3-4 meant we went straight, and 5-6 meant we turned right.  If there were only 2 choices, then 1-3 meant left and 4-5 meant right.   It was a fun day.  But we found a lot of dead end roads, went in circles a view times and got practically stuck in a subdivision in Gadsden once!  But we ended up in Steele, Alabama and found a stray, malnourished dog, whose name is now Molly.    It was 3 weeks before Daddy died.


Last weekend, we needed a break and got lost again.  Where the other time, we had planned it way ahead of time,  it was spur of the moment.  We loaded the cooler with peanut butter and banana sandwiches, root bear, ice and snacks.  This time, we had new dice, that we'd gotten several weeks ago at Walmart.  Instead of having numbers on it, it has L, C, and R.  Perfect for left, center, and right!  We used a second number dice to tell us how many miles we go before we use the LCR dice again. If we rolled the number dice and it came up five, we went five miles before rolling the LCR. 

We also had veto power.  No dead end road. No subdivisions. No repeating roads we'd already been on unless we wanted to. 

We went straight to the Cherokee Rock Village, first thing!    It's not really a village, it's just an area with lots of great big boulders and a spectacular view off Lookout Mountain.    It's been a while since we were there and things have changed.  It used to be a dirt road and now it's paved. I wouldn't be surprised if they did that for the film crew.   Failure to Launch with Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker had scenes filmed there.  The scene were Matthew's character and his friends were rock climbing.

Last week there were bulldozers there. They have bulldozed a lot of trees. I don't know if they are building a parking lot or some kind of commercial area.  No one sent us a memo on that one!

Next we ended up in Gadsden, we went past the mall, then somehow ended up behind the mall on the other side of the walking trail.  Then used a veto to keep from going in circles and ended up in Rainbow City.  We turned right at 77 and found a fabulous thrift store.  Eagle Rock Thrift store.  Their stuff was excellent quality and great prices too.  Too bad we didn't have any money. (Being unemployed sucks!) I did buy a cookbook for 99 cents and another for 49 cents.  (Hardback books are 99cents, softback are 49 cents). But it we get a job where we need nice clothes, we know where to go!

Next we were in Alexander City, Anniston (went by the base there), and then Heflin.  We ended up in Talapoosa, Ga!    Then we turned on our Tom Tom GPS and found a way home.  We'd made a huge loop and ended up only 1 hour and 15 minutes from home.   We saw some beautiful country during the day.

  And while we were riding, we played TV trivia!   We have cards from the game.  Since my sister and I take turns driving, the passenger reads and we both answer. It's us against the card.  And we sometimes cheat, I mean bend the rules, by giving more than one answer and if we so much as mention the answer, even we we're saying we don't think that's it, we still get it because we said it.  (Hey, it's our game, our rules!). 


So next time you just need a break, grab some friends, and get lost!  It's an adventure.