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

The girls trip to a beach house: Part I

Hey everyone,

Sarah asked me to update you on the wonderful trip we had to Monterey Bay Feb 12^th-14th. What a memorable trip it was! I just want to start by saying that putting aunt Vickie and our mom in the same car for any amount of time is dangerous. The hysterical laughing started before we ever left Vicki’s street at about 5:30pm on Friday night. By the time we finally arrived at Sarah’s house it was already 8pm and I was on the verge of wetting my pants! My stomach hurt so bad from laughing that it felt like I had done 100 sit ups.


Poor Sarah, who was slowly recovering from a terrible flu she had been fighting for weeks, answered the door to a group of cackling hens that she swears smelled like pee pee. She was kidding after all but it made the trip even more thematic. After shuffling our 20 plus suitcases, bags and other mysterious packages inside, we enjoyed some time visiting with Sarah and the family before we settled in for bed. Being the travel nazi that Sarah is, we had a 6am departure time!

At 5:30am Mom is waking everyone up so we can get ready and load the Tahoe for the long, seven hour trip. Thanks to Garrett, the car was quickly loaded and we were on our way, excited and ready to feel the wind in our hair! Um… and our wigs!

My brother Tim and I

We made it about five miles before we decided that we needed coffee and candy, thank you Starbucks and Walmart for helping us start the day off right! About an hour and a half into the trip we communally decide that we were going to make another stop at my brother Tim’s house. We have to love my brother and his wife for this, who else would take a 7:45am call with 4 surprise guest… did I mention hungry, surprise guests? My sister-in-law “whipped up” some eggs, coffee cake, turkey bacon and coffee for us and I must say I could get used to this dropping in stuff. But we had a place to get, so after a few bad jokes and merciless, sibling teasing, we were back on the road heading for Monterey Bay.

As we are rolling down Interstate 5 chatting, laughing and enjoying the beautiful scenery, I was startled by loud “thump” and a high pitch voice yelling "SLUG BUG!" Startled, I look over at Sarah, who is supposed to be driving, and she has this crazed, cat woman look as if she just hit some mysterious jack pot!

Mom and I being ourselves!

She looks over at me, wagging a single finger, and yells "that’s one for me!" I could not help but laugh at her slightly insane finger gestures when I hear a shout from the backseat, "its on!" This from sweet aunt Vickie? Apparently the idea is to spot every Volkswagen Bug on the road and shout “Slug Bug!” while beating the tar out of the roof (in case anyone in the next zip code missed the shouting) all to prove you are the first to spot it and then (drum roll please) you get a point. Huh… I am now convinced that my family is insane and this “game” is gonna get violent!

For the next 3 hours the roof of that car took a serious beating and a few of us innocent bystanders had a near death experience from flying fists (that would be mom and I.) Little did I know that people took this game serious and you had better stay out of fist range if you wanted keep from seeing little stars. If you have ever seen the length of my sister’s arms then you would probably have just crawled onto the floor of the car and rode there the entire trip! Had you happened to be driving on that freeway that early Saturday morning, you would be thinking that four women just escaped from ward B at the local looney bin!

Take them back to the looney bin!

Around 12pm, appetites were kicking in and so we began scanning for somewhere to get a bite to eat, having run out of relatives that live along the route. We spot a rest stop off the highway in the middle of nowhere and I get excited because I see a Subway. Five dollar Foot Longs in February here we come!

We pile out of the car and I elbow my way through the front door first and run to get in line because little did I realize that Starbucks and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups would not sustain me for the rest of the stop-and-go journey. I get my Footlong, pick a table and am well into the second half when I look up and Mom, Sarah and Vickie are standing there, jaws open, just staring at me. I wipe the mayo and lettuce particles from my chin, give them a dirty look and say, "WHAT???? IM HUNGRY!" Ignoring them, I put my nose back to my food and sang “Footlong February” to my own tune.

The "incident" at the lake!

As we finish up our $5 lunches, Vicki wraps up the second half of her foot long, tucking it neatly into her bag. Mom and Sarah also wrap up the second half of their Footlongs talking some nonsense about saving it for dinner. So I gather up the remnants of lettuce and onion pieces, scattered in the vacant spot where my Footlong sat about four minutes ago, and throw them in the trash. Without looking back I trudged to exit door, no longer hungry and decide to graciously hold the door for them, after all I had two free hands since I didn’t have to carry the other half of my sandwich!

Back on the road again we are back to laughing and teasing each other. Most of the jokes geared toward the old ladies in the back seat (he he, still going!). The merciless jesting continued until we had tears rolling down our faces, tummies hurting and in desperate need of a restroom.

We pull off the highway, lured by a sign directing us to a roadside fruit and nut stand that boasted "free wine tasting." How excited are we...fruits, nuts and FREE wine, Jackpot! It was quite a bit more than a “stand” and had a restaurant, store, candy store & coffee ship and a few kids rides. First order of business, we find the restroom and then decide to wander around and see how much trouble we can get into.

We love our mamma!

One of us spotted a pond and we all decide its photo time. Sarah takes a few pictures of us and then tells Vic to take a picture of her, mom and I. So my obliging aunt stands back, aims the camera and tells us to say “cheese.” We wait… and we wait… and she finally yells, ”Tammy! What button do I push?” I look down at the camera in her hand and barely control my laughter saying " well first turn the camera right side up and then push the little silver button on top."

We all bust out laughing and a lady who was sitting on a nearby rock witnessing the picture taking event starts laughing. She tells Vickie "Im sorry but that was so funny even I had to laugh!" The rest of our time there was filled with crazy pictures, lots of laughing and acting like children. Naturally all of the other people there wondered which looney bin we had escaped from. We never did find any free wine though.

A few hours and eleven Slug Bugs later we finally arrive to the beach house! Lets just say that it is an amazing three-story home that we entered on the third floor level through the front door. Just inside the front door there was a bedroom, bathroom and a landing that was open down to the second floor. The whole back side of the house is full glass windows that open up to a balcony overlooking the beach.

The main floor has a living area, kitchen, bathroom and a media room. I quickly claim the media room as my own bedroom and can feel my excitement grow as I continue to explore. Down the stairs to the bottom floor has two bedrooms that both open up to another deck. That deck has stairs that take you down to the beach.

Sisters

Words cannot describe how amazing this house is! We all finished choosing our rooms, so excited to each have our own room, and unloaded the car. Sarah commented quite a few times on how many bags we had all packed… Having been sick I think she was tempted to just throw them from the top landing!

That evening we sat out on the patio eating dinner that mom had prepared ahead of time and sipping various cocktails. We watched the sunset from the patio of the beach house and marveled that it was the first time for mom to be staying in a beach house. The look on our mothers face was priceless.

We began to plot our the adventures for the next day but little did we know how much trouble and laughter were waiting for us!

Tune in for part II next time!

Affectionately,

Tammy