A Sad Thanksgiving Story... just a little late.

I'm posting about Thanksgiving just a liiitttllle late. I mean, it's only almost Christmas. X) Oops! I finally uploaded these pictures and thought I would share our little Thanksgiving adventure and mishap and recovery with you. 

We had planned to take a roadtrip down to Tucson, Arizona to commune with my family at my aunt's home. It was about 570 miles and should have taken us around 8-9 hours to drive there. I was so excited to see my aunt, my mom and dad and my brother- I hadn't seen my parents since early summer and my brother and aunt in much longer. Lucas was not as excited for the roadtrip and driving as I was- but excited to be with family.

 

Here I am, all ready at the very beginning of our roadtrip. We left at around 9 in the morning- so we were nice and rested for the drive ahead of us.

 

 I was the chosen navigator for the first part of the trip, and I carefully reviewed our directions. We drove and drove and drove until we almost hit the California/Arizona border. I had just switched spots with Lucas and was in the driver's seat when disaster struck. My cruise control started getting wonky, wouldn't go on and the light started blinking wildly. No big deal, I can drive without cruise control.... but then our check engine light went on. Sensing something bad could happen, I woke Lucas from his nap in the passenger seat to alert him. 

We pulled over to a small parking lot in the middle of nowhere. We didn't have the money (at all) to get the car checked out or fixed, and we certainly didn't have the funds to call a tow truck or get some kind of rental to drive the rest of the way. Besides, we were driving on Thanksgiving day, and nearly EVERYTHING was closed for the holiday. 

We couldn't afford to get stuck in Arizona, because Lucas HAD to be back for work by Monday... and my registration for my car also was due to expire that Monday- so we had to be back in state and get my registration by that date. It was a mess. I called my parents and explained the situation, hoping they could magically fix it somehow. Unsurprisingly, they couldn't. They told us we needed to make a hard decision and be careful and do the right thing, and that they wouldn't be mad if we couldn't come. Lucas and I talked it over and decided it just wouldn't be smart to continue on, so we had to turn around.

I was SO sad. Maybe it's a bit silly, but I just sobbed as Lucas held me for a while pulled over in the middle of nowhere. We were tired, starving, had driven half of the way, and just had to turn around and go back. We didn't have anything at the house to make for Thanksgiving and I wasn't going to see my family. I was just really sad and disappointed. Lucas made silly jokes and tickled me until I cheered up a bit. We drove the long way home and tried desperately to find anywhere that was open and serving food at 9pm on Thanksgiving. We thought we were out of luck until we found ONE Jack in the Box drive thru open. We got some chicken sandwiches and ate them ravenously.

 We finally made it home and immediately curled up in blankets and got some frustration out together...

 .....Playing Gears of War 3. Duh.

 The next day, we went grocery shopping with our meager budget and I pulled together the best Thanksgiving meal I could. We had roasted chicken ( the grocery was out of turkeys) scalloped potatoes, dressing, sweet potato fries, cranberry sauce, rolls, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, chocolate cake and two varieties of wine.

I missed my family so much and was bummed we didn't get to have our planned vacation, but it was fun to start a new tradition with my own little family. We had full and happy bellies and were tipsy and happy all day. Thank goodness for happy endings!