The Accidental Tourist Roadtrip

My fiance...best friend and her boyfriend and myself decided to go to Turner Falls in Oklahoma.  It was supposed to be a 4 days trip starting on a friday.  We got to Turner falls all right....  We took a wrong turn and saw the only option across was a rather shifty looking slab of concrete...  The drop to ravine was a good 100 feet but the guys said my jeep could make it so we started across.  What we didn't see until we got halfway it was the sign that clearly said it was was for motorcycles and bicylces only.....  About that time we started feeling some shifting underneath us and my friends boyfriend opened his door and screamed "for the love of God get off this its breaking under us!"  In front of us now were about 13 cyclists and behind us was about the same.....  We yelled for the people behind us to move and i put the car in reverse and floored it.  The bad thing is...I turned the car slightly and went over a small cliff it was about a 18 foot drop(which is exactly what the car did...). 

I tore out the four wheel drive and broke all 4 tire rods...  I also had two flats and a busted oil pan.  The suspension was tore up....  We got out of the car and walked back to the ravine....lots of water and rocks below...  The bicyclers on our side were giving us high fives for not dying...and the ones on the other side were giving us the finger becuase they had to back track almost 2 miles to get across....  That concrete slab was on exactly 3 steel cables...  The cables were still intact, but no concrete to be found. 

Things went from bad to worse after that....  The nearest mechanic was  about 50 miles out and was closed til Monday....  Luckily, their towing service was open....  We found a hotel less than a mile from the repair shop in a smaller town...  All they had was 12 restuarants and of course...all the fast food joints......a putt putt..a walmart and a small shopping mall.  We took a bus to turner falls and spent saturday and sunday swimming and exploring caves.... 

Monday came and we got some bad news...  The car was a mess and it would be around 2,000 bucks to fix it all.  I had plenty of cash in my bank...but they wouldnt take out of state checks...  So I had to wire the money and pay up front...  Even worse it would be a week maybe more to get the parts and fix it...  That was bad becuase we were supposed to be home Monday(before our parents were wise to us...).  Well at least my parents....  My friends parents knew where we were and knew that I had lied to my folks.  Her boyfriend had to be at work tuesday as well did mine....  She and I were out for school for the summer so it didnt much matter...  So the guys took a bus back and we stayed with the car....  She called her folks and they called my folks and luckily her parents were going on vacation for 2 weeks and said it was fine if I went along.  This was b4 caller id so I called my parents and begged and pleaded...  Finally, they said ok. 

My friend and I spent tuesday thru Friday shopping and cooking out and laying by the pool(which wasn't half bad).  The mechanic called and said the car would be ready Wednsday late.  Friday night the guys came back and we hit the only club in town....  They took off til Friday(but had to be at work friday morning) the following week so that they could ride back with us.  We had fun at the falls again that weekend and tuesday was there pretty fast. 

We got the car and headed home.  My friend and her boyfriend got into an arguement on the way back and it was pretty distracting...  I took a turnpike I hadn't seen b4 and my fiance was like I just saw the sign...  So I kept going.  It got dark and we saw a sign that said Wichita 350 miles....  Which at this point we should have already been home.  I was like man we must have taken the LONG way home.....  Hours went by(and several wrong turns and backroads later) and everyone in the car was asleep and I kept following the signs.....  I pulled into a gas station for gas and woke everyone up...  

We still had 50 miles to go and i hadn't recognized a thing for hours.  Usually, we would pass thru Lawton, Oklahoma...and then it was a 30 minute drive...but no dice....My friend went to the souveneir part and i heard her yell "HOLY $h*T".   She came up to me with a water globe with a state inside it...  Only it wasn't oklahoma...or Texas....  It was Kansas....  i had been driving to Wichita, Kansas for hours...  We all looked at eachother and then the clerk..who was now beyond herself with laughter....  She took our picture for her accidental tourist wall(which wasn't too full actually)....and gave us directions to the nearest hotel.....  That morning we headed back to Texas...with a map in hand... 

It was around 5 by the time we got in bed and the hotel was nice and gave us the room til saturday(which we wouldnt need)for the price of one day(after they got a good laugh from our predicament).  We didnt wake up til 5 that evening.....  We went and got something to eat and got on the road just before 8...  I took a wrong turn somewhere and we ended up in some old creepy cemetary...it was foggy and raining....  Then backtracked and got on the right road...  We got home just in time for me to drop the guys off at work....  Then we passed out.... 

I got pregnant on that trip as well...lol And 10 years later we were taking our son to turner falls...  I made a wrong turn somewhere...and drove for hours and hours...it looked somewhat familiar...  We ended up at the same gas station and I recognized the woman the moment we walked in...  Our picture from 10 years back was framed with a story next to it....  And a big caption above it that said "MY FAVORITES".  She took our picture again and said she would put it right next to the other one....  We spent the weekend in Wichita...lol