A Road Trip to be Remembered Forever!

Happy 2007! The ending of 2006 certainly had it's up and it's downs, that's for sure. On Friday three lovely ladies and myself woke up bright and early and hit the road for Sparta! We made an early morning run to Caribou Coffee to load up on the SUGAR before our what we thought was going to be a 5 hour road trip ahead of us. We made a pit stop in Chisholm to pick up another one of our buddies, took off to Hwy 5, then Hwy 37, then finally Hwy 53. All was well thus far! We made it to Duluth with no problems. Weather was AMAZING. Until we hit Wisconsin. The weather in Superior wasn't cooperating with us the best. We ran into a couple little mishaps from Superior to Sparta, but the weather eventually got better and the rest of the trip was smooth sailing....after we found our way back onto the right track. We all were hungry around 12:30pm. We see a sign saying the number of miles until Ashland, so we all agreed we'd wait until that town since we have all heard of that town before. As we were driving I kept noticing signs that were only saying "East" instead of "South." The thought occurred to me that we may be traveling in the wrong direction, but I wasn't going to let the girls know that quite yet. Didn't want them worried. We arrived at a McDonald's and I decided I had better look at the map just because of the 'certain feeling.' Ashland was on the right of my map. Our route was on the left of our map. OOPS!!! I ended up not taking or turning on the wrong Hwy. After I looked at the map in the parking lot and saw that we were lost I said "UH-OH" out loud with the response of my three amigas saying...."Uh-oh what?!" "Are we lost?" "What now?!" I decide I had better call Mrs. Williamson and get this all straightened out. I said something along the line of "Hey Mrs. Willy.... I think we're in a town we're not supposed to be in. I am kind of embarassed to tell you where we are." I saw how far away Ashland was from Sparta on the map and since we were already off schedule, didn't want her to know that we would be even later than expected because we were LOST. She looked on her map and graciously helped me with clear cut directions as to how to get back onto our route. Only took us about an hour to get back on Hwy 53S............but little did we know we had hours to go from there!!!! To make the story short, we were supposed to arrive in Sparta between 1 and 1:30pm. Our gang arrived there around 6ish. Let's just say this weekend was full of firsts for everything! The way there was kind of crazy. But being in Sparta was amazing. It was so wonderful spending time with our wonderful Williamson and Broberg friends!!! Mr. and Mrs. Williamson went above and beyond for us and totally made us feel at home! Of course, the time went by way too quickly. Before we knew it, it was time to repack our bags and hit the road back to Hibbing. But we definitely made a lot of memories and had a GREAT time there! The way back also ended with a bang. Good news--we didn't get lost!!!! It didn't take us 9 hours. We were about a half hour away from Superior when we past that bright shiny police car. Amber knew she was speeding. Unfortunately, Amber didn't see the cop car coming in advance or else she would have slowed down way earlier. Amber slams on her brakes (smart, she knows). Amber drives passed the cop. Amber sees the cop turning in the same direction as her. Amber is worried at this point. Amber sees pretty red, white, and blue lights come on. Amber realizes she is being pulled over. Amber was given a 'stearn warning.' The cop told Amber how much she would have paid if he would have been mean enough to give a ticket. Amber is THANKFUL she just got the warning!!!!
I was only 29 days away from a perfect 4 year "no getting pulled over" streak. Darn. Oh well. We all just laughed at how this road trip turned out. There was definitely a first for a lot of things, but it really added to the trip. What's a road trip without the problems, right?
Pictures coming soon!