"Guy on a Buffalo" - Our Brawley Trip Day 1

So, this Thanksgiving we were able to go to California to visit my grandparents on my mom's side of the family. This was definitely something to be grateful about, since we both had to figure out how to get off both of our jobs in order to go.

The Tuesday night before Thanksgiving, my mom picked us up, along with my sister and her husband, for us to start the LONG drive. As soon as we got Ashlynn and Ryan, my mom thought it would be a great idea to say a prayer...a little hasty in her celebrations the conversation went something as follows:

"We better say a prayer before we go..." [long pause] "Here we come Brawley! I hope we get there safe!!!" [another long pause]

I finally chimed in and asked if that was her prayer...

She quickly called on someone to say the "real" prayer and we started the drive.

Luckily, my brother (Austin) and his wife (Victoria) live in "Saint George" now, so we were able to split up the 13 hour drive. We got all caught up on our "Boy Meets World" on the drive down and were able to finally complete the final season. I am almost positive Neal will consider this his greatest accomplishment of the year...possibly even of his entire life.

As I explained above, Austin lives in "Saint George", which is really Veyo...meaning you drive to Saint George and then THROUGH it, over some hills (which we later found out were volcanoes), past a bunch of empty land, into a teeny tiny little place some people would consider a town, with one gas station, one "market" and a pie shop....then you turn onto a dirt road that leads to another dirt road, that you follow for about three hundred miles until in the middle of absolutely no where, surrounded by nothing but sagebrush and a rabbit you find a house. They may have possibly had neighbors in this town...but you would never know this because they are so secluded. ...in case you haven't guessed yet, they live in a little cabin, that matches perfectly with the landscape just described.

If you can't picture it, you can check out their blog...this link will take you to a picture of a sunrise, I am almost certain Victoria took a picture of right off her porch. They are legit cabin people!

Also lucky for us, Victoria is a super great cook, who had treats waiting for us as soon as we arrived and my brother is a great lumberjack who had a porch full of wood chopped, to keep us warm during the night...yep they are so legit they heat their house with a real wood burning stove. (I'm pretty sure at this point my sister-in-law Angela is wondering why my brother and his wife would choose to pay to "camp" somewhere for their permanent resident...but this place is absolutely perfect for them!)

After watching a few episodes of "Guy on a Buffalo" (the perfect clip considering our surroundings), we all retired for the night...so we could begin the rest of our adventure to Brawley! I only worried a few times that one of the snakes or tortoise they had at the foot of my bed was going to escape and I would wake up with an unexpected visitor in my bed, when I woke up...but somehow I survived.