¡Bienvenidos a Atlanta!

Lot's of things have happened in my life since my last post. Namely that this past weekend I celebrated my 21st birthday. Even just typing that is weird. But good.

It was definitely a birthday to remember (and yes, I remember it). Unfortunately I have no pictures to speak of.

But anyways.. My good friend, Leslie Sloan, rounded up Betsy Corry and Sarah Spooner and they kidnapped me for a weekend of birthday festivities. Friday night was spent around a campfire at the Sloan's house. Saturday we ended up in Atlanta where the lovely Megan Hafer resides. First stop, TACO CABANA!!!!!! I know you have read my obnoxious post about this magical fast food Tex-Mex place that only exists in south Texas. That is, except for the one that somehow magically appeared in Atlanta. And I'm pretty convinced that it was just for me. While there are some major differences, it is real enough to make an obsessive person like me feel right at home. I felt like it had only taken us 3 hours to drive to San Antonio, Texas and were all sitting outside at the 'patio cafe' enjoying far to much deliciousness. And that was only the beginning...

Because I didn't turn 21 until midnight Saturday/Sunday we had some time to kill. So we ended up taking a quick trip to Underground Atlanta. Hmmmm.. I wish I had taken a pictures. It is an underground shopping area that used to be very popular and from what I hear, fairly cool. It was something special for sure. It definitely looked like it had seen better days and we were definitely out of place there. But it was still a good time.

The rest of the evening included getting lost alot, eating at a fantastic burger place and then taking 'disco naps' at Megan's place while watching Saturday Night Live reruns. Disco naps were a good call. Then we freshened up and headed out on the town.

A fantastic surprise of the night was that we met Aziz Ansari and I got a picture taken with him. For those of you who don't know this name, he is Tom in Parks and Recreation and also hosted the MTV music awards this year. If that doesn't help just go Google him. Anyways, it was pretty exciting even if we had to wait forever to meet him.

Afterwards we went out on the town for a few hours. My first appearance as a 21 year old in public was epic for sure. And don't worry, I was in good hands.

Sunday, my actual birthday day was spent driving back and using the GPS to look for random roadside attractions which led us to what was apparently Georgia's largest flee market but really it was like 5 of the same stores repeated about 100 times. It was hilarious.

It had been a long time since I laughed as hard as I did this weekend. It was so fantastic to get away and to be celebrated. So here is to you Leslie Sloan, Betsy Corry, Sarah Spooner, and Megan Hafer!

Job well done.

Road Trip

So last night on an episode of The Middle (Wed 8:30/7:30c on ABC) the family on the show went on a road trip. I could not find a video to show you but it was basically the classic road trip scene with kids and much obnoxious but still laughable singing.

It definitely made me think about all of the places my parents took us as kids (hopefully many more places to come. hint, hint Mom and Dad). Every summer was spent hauling our 29 foot travel trailer everywhere across the US and even to Vancouver one summer. Yes, all seven of us would pile into a car and spend hours and hours together in cramped spaces watching VHS movies on our 9 inch TV complete with computer speakers that was strapped between my parents in the front (this was before portable DVD players, at least I think so).

We would drive all day(s) and sometimes into the night to get to our destination of choice. We would get so sick and tired of each other that we would literally kiss the ground when we would arrive at the final stop. One thing about these road trips is that you were never aloud to voice the fact that you had to pee. Stops waste time, the more stops you have the more time you have to spend in the car. I used to think my mother was crazy for it but after doing some road tripping of my own, I have come to realize she is not crazy, merely trying to save every minute she could. To entertain ourselves we listened to many audio something or others including many things from Focus on the Family, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and so on. There was also lots of NPR listening that occurred. If there were places we frequented often, my parents memorized the NPR stations for these areas. Being a kid I did not particularly care for Diane Rehm's voice or Talk of the Nation, or the hourly news. So I would try and listen to my portable CD player as loud as I could. Rest stops were timed and we always ate in the car. Getting to our destination quickly was always the name of the game. Five kids, a dog, and two parents can obviously quickly grow tired of being in close proximity with each other

These road trips are some of my favorite memories growing up. They took us to so many places it would take forever to name them all. A few included Yellowstone National Park, Oregon, Washington, many National Forests in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arizona, Georgia, and Vancouver. That's right. We pulled our 29-foot travel trailer from Boerne, TX up through Oregon and Washington right on in to Canada. It was so amazing!

I always loved visiting these places and being able to mark off what states we had visited or driven through. We even had one of those maps on the side of our travel trailer where you could fill in the states you had visited.

Out of all of these places we traveled Colorado was always my favorite. To this day my favorite spot is at a place called Taylor Park Colorado. It is about 35 miles from Gunnison and right over Cottonwood Pass which comes out of Buena Vista, CO. They have a few camp gorunds there and we would spend several weeks every summer waking up at the crack of dawn to fish, hike, explore the woods, and ride my grandparents 4-wheelers. It was always the favorite part of my summer. It was always where I felt the happiest and most free. It established a deep rooted love for Colorado that to this day still exists inside of me. Here are a few pics from over the years:

This is the 2nd of our trailers we had. And Pearl, our diesel Excursion that hauled us across America for many years before we traded her in for a mini-van (swagger wagon)

The greatest place ever. Taylor Park Reservoir

the only "store" for miles. always crazy people here

this is one of my favorite pics. top of the Continental Divide. taken right after we took a "short cut" that led us literally straight up a mountain.

These were times when our family was all together and we got to enjoy just being with each other. Since my brother's death it has been hard to realize that we will not ever all truly be together here on earth. John freaking loved all of these places just as much if not more than I did. Whenever I go to these places I will remember him fondly and all of those times with my family, the good and the bad. the fighting and the laughing. The campfires, timed showers, fishing, agonizing waits to get up in the morning, fighting over the bunk beds and who would get the dog at night, and all those hours spent in the car. Together. Everything and all of it I would not trade for the world.