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Oh no! I hope you get back on the road soon!

10 years ago I’d been dating my now husband for about 3 months. I’d been away home in the US for a month of that, and had returned to Australia about 6 weeks before the next semester of my degree began. My honey was working for a national chain of insurance sales at that time and needed to make a business run up the QLD coast, stopping at a bunch of different towns to check in at each office and do...something, exactly what now escapes me. It’s the sort of distance that would take you a solid 2-3 days of driving to do it in one hit, and he was going to take I think 2 weeks to drive up, doing all the meetings on the way and then the plan was we could make a somewhat leisurely drive back doing some extra sight seeing. He sweetened the deal by promising me sightings of wild platypii and wallabies on the beach for Valentines Day.

So off we went and it was a fun trip. I got to see him in business mode which was a side of him I hadn’t seen yet at that point, and got to see a ton of the country as well. I had done some travelling around Australia at that point but almost none in what is now my home state, so it was fun to see the tropical north and all of the small and regional towns along the coast. Sure enough he took me to a river where we watched a huge bull platypus hunt and patrol his territory, and to a crocodile farm where we were stalked by a gigantic male croc as he was on his side of the chain link fence and we were on ours with the tour guide. A few days before Valentine’s Day my heart finally took that last fall and I realized I was totally in love with this man...which just made the trip more magical.

Sure enough he took me out to a cape along the coast for Valentine’s Day where there are wallabies (small kangaroos) on the beach on one side of the cape. There are apparently a ton of crocs on the other side, so you have to register if you want to camp on that side so they know to come check on you! We didn’t go on that side... he took me hiking through the rainforest and I had my first ever leech experience....thankfully just on our shoes but he bought me a “leech treatment kit” I still keep in our medicine cabinet (a shaker of table salt and a bottle of tea tree oil).

In Townsville, nearly at the end of our journey, he left me at the aquarium while he went to appointments and I got to tour the sea turtle hospital which was fascinating!

He took me to hidden pubs and public sculptures, tiny towns and major attractions. It was an amazing trip, but in the background of the entire journey was a hurricane brewing off the coast. On the last day of our trip, at the northernmost point of our travel, we realized the hurricane was aimed at the coast on our route home. So instead of a few nights up north and a leisurely drive home, we got in the car and started driving straight south. We drove all afternoon and late into the night. After a brief stop for some sleep and food, we started the next morning at dawn and learned from the radio that they were closing the roads right behind us, stopping travel in the area while the coast hunkered down for the storm. We drove straight through until we got home that day and thankfully the hurricane wasn’t too bad behind us...

It is a road trip I will remember the rest of my life for so many different reasons and one I hope we can duplicate sometime in the future...though hopefully without the hurricane!

So my parents met on Friday the 13th of September, which should have been an indicator that their first date would be... interesting.

My dad and mom went to different colleges, and my dad originally had a crush on my mom's roommate (le gasp!)
Dad's school was hosting a fancy ball, so dad drove out to my mom's school to pick up her roommate and brought a blind date for mom. Mom's roomie knew how much Mom liked Dad, and being the fantastic wing woman she was, she and Mom decided to switch the date on my Dad and his friend - Mom went with Dad and her roomie went with the blind date.

Dad's school was 3 hours away along the winding rural roads of Vermont. Dad had borrowed his roommate's car. Said roommate had a policy to never pay more than $50 for a car. Apparently you couldn't have the A/C and the radio on at the same time or something, which Dad found out when the car broke down on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. This was before the age of cellphones obviously, so the four of them got out of the car and started walking to try to find civilization. They walked about 2 miles before turning around to go back to the car - which had already been towed thought they hadn't seen any cars, let alone a tow truck. So they started walking in the opposite direction. All told they walked 9 miles that night until they came to the creepiest tiny New England town - complete with storefronts marked "THE BANK", "THE MARKET", and a mansion on a hill with a wrought iron gate creaking in the breeze. They made their way to "THE JAIL" and asked the officer on duty if they could spend the night in a jail cell to at least be able to stay warm. My mom's sister came to pick all four of them up in her Yaris she'd won in a radio contest the next morning.

Obviously the double date didn't go as planned, but 9 miles of walking was plenty of time for Mom and Dad to get to know each other, and for Dad to realize he liked Mom better than her roommate. They went back on September 13th on their 30 year anniversary to re-explore the area (on bicycles rather than on foot, though!)

So a little over two years ago I dislocated my knee and needed surgery to get it fixed. It was a specialty surgery, and I would have to keep my leg completely straight for a month, if I bent it at all I would wreck the surgery and have to do it over again. I had the surgery on December 22nd, and tons of family showed up the next day for Christmas. I was pretty out of it the first day, and I don’t remember much of the rest of that week either, all I know was I was lucky I had so much family at the house because I never had to ask the same person twice to bring me anything. My boyfriend at the time was spending a lot of time at the house with me, which was really nice. Anyway on the first time I left the house was for the New Years party my church I wore sweat pants.

Then a few days later my dad got me up and said I was going to the store with him we talked and he mentioned my boyfriend was coming by later to pick me up. I thought that was odd since normally my boyfriend would have told me himself not had my dad tell me. Anyway when we got home I went to my room and stared at a pair of jeans. I was had no clue where my boyfriend was taking me but I wasn’t going with him in sweats. So i took my straight leg brace of and slowly put both legs in the jeans making sure not to bend my leg at all. Then I pulled the jeans up the leg that hadn’t had surgery then went to pull the other pant leg up, I somehow got tangled and lost my balance and fell over. I managed not to bend my leg or hurt myself but my nerves took a beating. After I got my pants on I spent the next hour nervous. He finally came and picked me up and we went driving north. He still wouldn’t tell me where we were going. We turned off the highway onto a very drifty gravel road. We went plowing through the snow some of the drifts were 3ft deep and others were really long. It was so much fun. Then we topped this hill and I couldn’t see this bridge at the bottom of the hill. We continued driving down the hill and stopped at the bridge. We got out and walked around a bit. Then he said we should write our names on the bridge. He pulls out a knife and scratched his name into the bridge then handed it to me. I struggled with it and when I was done I turned around to hand the knife to him and he was down on one knee with a ring and asked me to marry him. I said yes of corse. And we spent the rest of the day driving around telling or family the news. That night we had our first kiss. My first kiss period, since I had been saving it for my future husband as a gift. That was exactly two years ago today.

I made this girl as a reminder of that day. (Not that I don’t already have one on my hand lol.)


BX First Kiss Miss

@Seaswell Glad you've got family close to stay with! :) Be glad you broke down in the winter time when east Texas is truly nice to visit. If this were July, it would be a hundred and ten in the shade and even the rattlesnakes would be too hot to move during the day. Lol

@justasaddletramp I made this a winter trip on purpose. My hunny is northern native and I know better than to leave comfortable for too dang hot. I'm totally digging the small town feel after years in the city. The cafe across the street has great food at a great price.

@peppermintc that sounds harrowing. I'm glad your poptop managed to get you everywhere you needed to go.

Oh my goodness!

Sorry, not sorry, my hunny and I have been tucked snuggly into a wonderful little cabin in the woods with nothing but deer and fish for company, and only local phone. Today we picked up the car and completed our planned journey to Corpus Christi. Dinner was a burger on the beach. I am feeling so surrounded by love on this adventure. Maybe I should have come home to visit years ago.

Glad it all turned into a wonderful extra adventure for you!