Girls Road Trip - Part Deuce!

Our beautiful Mother, Wanda Eck

Our adventure continues. Our Sunday was spent driving down to Carmel. That was one place mom wanted to see while we were there. The first stop was in down town Monterey. Sarah decided it was photo time so we parked and her and I walked down to the beach area. The view was amazing and the walk way went for miles. The only problem is it ran along the 30 foot cliff!

What were we thinking climbing over this?!!

Sooooo… I get a hair-brained idea, look at Sarah and say "lets climb down the cliff to a little beach area and take pictures there." Now vision this, two 6ft tall and taller women wearing Ugg boots, with cameras around our neck and me caring a purse. I start the descent with Sarah not far behind me and we make it to the bottom without any problems. We take a few pictures and decide that we better head back up.

The view when we climbed down was worth it.

As we start the climb up we realize that Ugg boots, wet sand, cameras and a purse are a bad combo for climbing cliffs. A crowd that is now developing at the top confirms that we must look like two blondes that didn’t realize that climbing in boots with purses is like smelling a scratch and sniff sticker at the bottom of a pool! Let me tell you it didn’t take Sarah and I long to figure out a system and get back to the top with minimal issues and a lot of sweat in places that normally don’t sweat.

We walk back to the car to find Vickie and Mom sitting in the back seat laughing with no clue that we just scaled a cliff in the name of nature. Back on the road we head for the well know stretch of highway called the "17 mile drive." As we arrive, we notice that it is blocked off by barricades. With no clue why its blocked off we have no choice but to head down the main highway heading to Carmel. Later we find out that the road was block because of some big golf tournament with big name players like Tiger Woods.

We finally reach Carmel and drive through down town and decide that we are way to tired to walk the shops so we head back towards the beach house deciding that we are gonna eat lunch at Fisherman’s Warf located in Monterey on pier 39. Laughing all the way there, making fun of Vickie because she has to hold her neck every time Sarah comes to a stop. Vickie had neck surgery in January and Sarah drives like Mario Andretti so it was not a good combination. She did this thing where she would hold her neck with her elbows extended out to either side like a chicken. She would shout out “Stopsign!” and then grab her neck really quickly. It was so funny to see her sitting there with her arms all chicken-like, big round eyes, rotating left and right to see if any cars were about to hit us! Poor aunt Vickie!

Margaritaville... Carmel style!

Once again we arrive at our destination having to potty so bad we walk/ran to the first bathroom we could find at the pier. Ok ok, it really wasn’t the bathroom that drew us to the restaurant we went into, it was the sign out front that said happy hour! I elbowed my thru my family to go into this quant little seafood place and run to the bar telling the bartend that I was in dire need for a $3.00 Margarita. By the time the girls found me I was on round two enjoying a love convo with the salt on the rim of my glass.

Titanic Sarah

A few drinks later we are once again laughing uncontrollably, tears running down our face and I swear I head Vickie snort a few times. For those that know how we are when we get together, throw in a happy hour and we even laugh at how retarded we can get. Happy as can be we load up and head back to the beach house so we can relax and watch the sunset one last time before we have to head back home. Let me tell you that that evening is filled with crazy pics of Sarah re-enacting the Titanic scene on the landing of the 3rd floor, Mom laughing at her wig on the coffee table that looked like some a gremlin with big ears and Vickie down stairs trying to figure out how to use the remote to the tv and having no success. Whew...thank goodness I was there because it truly was site straight out of that movie, one who flew over the coo coo's nest!

Yes I almost to the end of this story and it is the last day of out trip. As much as we didn’t want to, we all packed up our things and loaded the car to get started on the 7 hour drive home. The trip back was similar to the one there, full of laughter, potty breaks and lots of stops for photo ops.

Just as we get to the last stretch of our road trip I notice Sarah gripping the steering wheel tightly and looking like she just saw a ghost. Mom and Vic have no clue what’ going on because as usual they are in the back seat laughing so hard at nothing in particular because neither one can even finish a sentence. Sarah gets the car pulled over on the side of the 5 freeway in the middle of nowhere on the grapevine. I have no signal on my phone, Sarah’s is almost dead, Mom left here phone in her car back at Sarah’s house and Vickies phone only has signal if you hold it out the window.

Sarah gets her AAA card out and realizes that her membership ended on that day (thank you Jesus that it was still good) so she calls and finds out that we are 30 miles from the closest town that has a repair shop and they are closed so we cant get it fixed till the next morning. They dispatch a tow truck and we call our brother Tim to see if they can come get us and put us up for the night. Thank the good lord above that his wife was able to come pic us up and that they were only 30 minutes away also. The tow truck driver arrives and it is only a single cab truck. Now mind you there is four of us plus him. Sarah gets out to talk to him and Mom, Vic and I are in the car laughing about who knows what and fogging up the windows. I am almost sure that tow truck driver looked at us a few times with that "what did I get myself into" look.

After a few minutes of them talking Sarah walks back to the car and tells us that he is going to have to load us onto the back of the flatbed trailer and that we are gonna have to ride back there until we arrive at the repair shop. He also said that because it is against the law to do this we would have to refrain from sticking our hands out the window, turning on any lights and refrain from taking pictures with the flash on. Yes we had been taking picture when we were sitting there, because we needed reminders that only we can break down in the middle of no-where and have that much fun while Sarah is trying to get her car towed to the repair shop. We agree and get loaded on the back of this tow truck when our sister in law arrives. Because we are already load she was informed that she would have to follow us into town and where he would unload the car at the repair shop and then she could then pick us up. After a long night and much laughter we arrive to my brothers get settled in and after lots of giggling in the dark like kids at camp, we pass out from exhaustion ( ok sarah once again its one am and my brain cant figure out how to spell this darn word!)

We are being loaded on the tow truck!

We all arrive home the next day wore out but truly happy and truly realizing that god is amazing and has truly blessed us with the opportunity to go on this trip and also to have his protection a blessing to make it through the car breaking down and for us to be able to turn it into an amazingly fun experience! We are also truly blessed to be able to share this time with our mother and build amazing memories that we will cherish for years to come! I just want to say thank you to my amazing sister Sarah who worked hard to plan this entire trip, find that amazing beach house and to all those that donated to Wanda’s bucket list making it possible for us to do this. Also to the lady that gave us such an amazing price on the beach house making it possible to for us to stay there. I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as we did living it.

Always,

Tammy