Some of the best stories come when everything goes wrong

All I wanted to do was go mountain biking.

Texas has no mountains. I convinced Hatchet and Teagan to go to McAllister park and check out their relatively new off road trail. How hard could it be? I went once before with my dad but he wouldn't let me explore...something about his bike and his rear didn't get along. But Hatchet and Teagan were young! We could do this!

Yeah.



It had rained earlier in the day but had cleared up by the time we decided to go. Packing two bikes in my Jetta proved to be an advanced tetris game. Haha, my dad tried to jam them in and scratched the bumper with one of the bike chains. He didn't laugh like I did. In other words, I was late to our meeting place. Teagan and Speed got to check out the trail and decided it was really muddy. But we tried it anyway.

So naive...I mean WOO!

We made it 20ft before our tires were so caked in mud that they looked like large chocolate donuts. Jen said lets go back, but noo. Onward we went scrapping mud off so the tires on our bikes could move every ten feet. Texas mud is THICK and cake-like. I mean I was out of shape but moving through that was ridiculous! Then the mosquitoes descended on us. I had forgotten about those guys. Mud is a pretty good bug spray as it turns out and I decided to rub it all over myself. For the record, it worked. By the time Teagan finally had enough (because it was her idea to keep pushing forward! As punishment I pushed the "let's run a marathon without training" idea later) we had to carry our bikes back. Poor Clarence was 5 lbs heavier. I believe there were people waiting in the parking area that had warned us before and got to see us saunter back in disgrace.

But no! We were not defeated! Far from it...since we didn't get to bike like we wanted to why not bike to a car wash and clean up? Both Speed and Teagan had iphones. Just use the GPS right? We freed our wheels and biked a couple miles down road (which felt like 20) and hit up a car wash. I had three dollars in my camelbak. Should have been enough. We were so close!

  

Not defeated! (I was totally defeated...not pictured)

According to Speed this is right before we had to sell our innocence

So Teagan and I volunteered to go try and find someone willing to give us 50 cents.

Let us get a full picture of this epic event shall we?
Two grundgy girls absolutely covered in mud and sweat come up to you at dusk asking for 50 cents. They leave the army guy to watch the bikes because people will be more sympathetic to girls right? You know it didn't sound that crazy when we did it...
The first lady we came upon at CVS looked nice enough. We came up to her all excited asking for just two quarters. She looked at us like we were going to mug her, locked her car, reached into her purse and quickly walked inside. We think she was holding onto her mace in case we tried something funny.

Fail.

So we ran across the street to a gas station. There was a guy pumping gas into his pimped up ride and I thought heck no. He probably wouldn't be very nice to us...or something along those lines went through my head. But Teagan asked and he kind of laughed and said "...just 50 cents? alright." He was actually really nice. I still think about that situation and judging others based on appearance.

The story didn't end there though. We ran back to the car wash and told Speed what had happened. When we started back to the park and our cars it was dark. Very dark and the sidewalk we were on was very unlit. That park is kind of scary at night...high on life we decided to go to IHOP for food. (IHOP the official eatery of San Antonio YSA Summer '10) Teagan and Speed thought they would get us there soooooooooooo fast with their GPS on the iphone. SCOFF!! We went all the around the airport and got stuck in traffic for what 30 minutes? Hindsight: had we just taken Nachodoches we could have been there in 5 minutes. Google map says: please board the ferry. Moral: Technology doesn't always win.

Teagan's bike was strapped to the back of her car so she parked by the window. She wanted to keep an eye on it to keep it from getting stolen. So we march into the IHOP and say can we sit right there-pointing to the window. The waitress is kind of taken aback and says ok. We're all chipper and talking about how muddy we are and how hungry we are then we almost at the same time notice all the ashtrays around...Teagan did you really just have us sit in the smoking section?

Much laughter ensues.

Since we were all wet and muddy big Speed got cold. He was shivering so badly that Teagan and I felt bad for him and knitted him a small blanket out of napkins and straw wrappers. I was proud of that moment of ingenuity and attribute it to my time with the engineers. And they thought they taught me nothing. Then in walked Mama K into our lives. A feisty old lady who smoked a pack within the time we were there. She goes there every evening if you're interested in meeting her and treats everyone like family. Speed and I ordered big meals and Teagan wasn't going to order anything because she was on a diet. Mama K looked over and told her a thing or two. She ended up ordering macaroni and cheese and fruit from the kids meal to get her to stop ranting. I think she went off for 15 minutes. This was one of those rare things that got me laughing so hard I cried especially when her food came out. We now affectionately call it bottom of the pot macaroni. She hid it under a napkin so Mama K thought she had eaten. And trust me when I say she checked. Mama K went away for a little bit and came back with a lemon and a napkin and was like "watch this kids it's a crab!" She giggled like a little girl. "Don't worry we will give the lemon back" she assured the waitresses. We vowed to visit Mame K again.

High on Life

What a night. Freaking awesome.