Thelma and Louise

During the Summer of 2006 we bought a Suburban. This was before gas was $4.00 a gallon and when I still had two other kids at home - both are graduating this year. We found a heck of a deal on eBay and decided that it was too good to pass up.

Now, how to get the vehicle from Houston, TX to Utah?!? Well, we could pay to have it transported, but that would take about 2 weeks. So after talking it over and weighing all the options, we decided that I would fly down and drive it back. Of course Mark wouldn’t let me go by myself (even if I was packing heat!).

So I talked my sister Norma, who is 15 months younger than me, to accompany me on this fine adventure. We could see a part of the country that neither of us had seen before, find out just how much cargo that Suburban could hold as we shopped our way back home and most importantly we would be going WITHOUT KIDS!! Yahooo!!

The adventure started when we got to Houston and my sister asked me if I needed to change my money to Texas Money in the airport. I still laugh at that joke. We were then met by some runner boy from the car dealership in the Suburban that I was about to buy. As he was driving us to the dealership we were quizzing him all about the un-manned toll booths for all of the different parkways. He had a little clicker thing that automatically let us through. I’m sure he thought we were TOTAL hicks!

After we got to the dealership, we took the Burb out for a spin - - just Norma and I. We pulled over in the parking lot of the local doughnut shop - - what place could be safer?! And started checking things out.
As you can see I gave it a thorough once over while Norma documented the occasion. She also took pics with my cell phone that I sent back to Mark. His response was “Just WHAT exactly are you looking for?” I didn’t really know, but thought I should look anyway.

That night we drove from Houston to the Dallas area and spent the night in Ft. Worth. It worked great - Norma is an excellent navigator and I did exactly what she told me to. As we were driving we were talking about how we were kind of like Thelma and Louise since we had run a few toll booths by being in the wrong lane (the one you drive in if you have a clicker thing). Oh, yeah, we were two wild and krazy gals!

The next morning when we got up we decided to take some wacky pictures of us jumping on the bed. I’m not sure why we decided to jump on the bed, probably because that is something that is FORBIDDEN.

We were laughing pretty good over that one when one of us thought it would be SUPER funny if we were to get the gun and take a picture with it! Now, for those of you who are NOT rednecks, let me explain a few things:

1) My Dad made sure that all six of us girls knew how to shoot a gun and handle one.

(2) I have practiced w/ the 9mm that we took and felt pretty confident with the loading / unloading and shooting process. (Woe be unto the poor sucker that crosses me!)

(3) I always take a gun when I am traveling alone, especially if it is just me and the kids (which I have done quite a bit).

(4) This is probably the most important one and there are two parts - - we were on the TOP floor of the motel and the gun did NOT have a clip in it.

Knowing all that doesn’t it just make these pictures hilarious?!? Two middle aged housewives trying to be all wild and crazy?

We did take the token picture with the REALLY big longhorn too.

All in all it was two days of really long driving, but we had a great time together and wished that all the sisters could have come with us. Heaven knows I had room for them all!

When we got home Jack nicknamed the Burb the “Cowgirl Cadillac” and the name just stuck.

Well, now that Jade & Matt are graduating and gas is climbing to around $4.00 per gallon, that makes the Cowgirl Cadillac somewhat impractical. I loved driving it. Loading a sister or two and their kids in and taking a mini road trip to see another sister or take our kids on a field trip. One time we had all of my sisters and my Mom and had a really fun girls day at Swiss Days in Midway.

If gas didn't cost so dang much, I probably would have held onto it for a good long time. But, all things must come to and end and last week we sold it. I hope that the Cowgirl Cadillac has as many fun adventures with her new family as we did!