Getting There...

How do you begin a road trip with many friends?

Fuel and then gas. If you're toting four about to be half marathon runners you also need to add in a good amount of water along with the fuel. But never put water in your fuel. Or something like that.

Armed to the hilt with sturdy snacks,catchy tunes and an air of excitement this road trip would prove to be epic. I can't even begin to count all the inside silliness that would mean exactly nothing to someone who didn't know us. Imagine passing that group of guffawing-loud-don't-care-who-can-hear teenagers and then imagine yours truly with a can't-get-any-higher-bun giggling right along beside them.

Laura,Heather,Jennifer,Jonathan,Jeff,Zed,Lemmi and Aleymayhu may be able to conjure up a similar image.

We teased each other about music choices and whined that some tunes were simply not singable. Or maybe that was just me. We eventually settled in and all agreed on a mix disc that was full of music from our teenage years.

In honor of our half marathon we also agreed that we would over use the word halvsies as much as possible.

Once we were settled in and sufficiently seventeen again and belting out tunes had quieted to simply humming along,we were well down the road. It was dark,we had almost settled on a temperature that would suite us all and you can imagine were not a bit sleepy.

With a few rounds of Would You Rather under our belts we shared with each other what things are on our bucket lists. We carefully chronicled them on Abbie's iphone so that later we could come back and scrutinize our choices. We could come back to edit the list or not. Maybe the list would prove to be motivating in the future. However it would work four of us were well on our way to marking-running a half marathon-off our lists.

Three of us have worked for well over a year to achieve this goal. One of us chimed in for the last three weeks or so and completely showed up us girls.

I don't make this stuff up.

All that coffee and water prompted a pit stop somewhere in Arkansas. The hand dryers in the women's restroom were just shy of being classified as an F1 tornado. We were amazed at the size of the circles the forced air pressed into our forearms.

Yes,I imagine by this time it was late. How could you tell?

Never passing up a good photo op we made these.

*We are mostly friends because we are similar in height. We don't have much else in common. *wink*

Seven...the amount of things I could have still fit into my hoodie pocket.

When we finally made it to MO and at long last found where we could check into our home away from home well, everything was funny.

Driving off when I got out to read a sign? Giggleable. Not so funny when that screeching car started to act all weird. Was it?

Making up our own conversations for the two friends who went in to check in based on their body language as we watched through the glass. Hilarious.

Going for a walk once we unpacked the van,sitting near the water fall and making up more conversation of the security guard who passed by. Laughable.

We were reluctant to settle down and sleep but felt that we should not loose too many winks considering we were technically still in training for the run that was only one day away.

Next morning began with someone's alarm clock going off. Up and at 'em. We all showered and dressed and made a grocery list of foods that would suit all of our desires. The girls went shopping leaving the guys to check out the amenities. They did a great job. We had a heck of a time finding a grocery store.

We checked out the sights as we drove from store to store and found some things that we might like to do later. Branson had a fair amount of damage from recent tornadoes but still offered plenty of fun looking attractions.


Back with the groceries we rustled up some grub and the boys cleaned up the mess.

**Let's title this photo shall we?

The big one. Come on interact with me. Leave me your wittiest title in the comment section and I will pick a winner and let you all know soon.

Then we came up with a plan for entertainment for the day and headed out on the town.

Everything in Branson seemed a bit more confusing than it needed to be but we finally figured out how to spend our bought online tickets and went in to the local wax museum.

I know you would probably like to see those photos so don't worry as the title of this post suggests I'm getting there. This post will most definitely have

...to be continued.

*We are not actually that similar in height but it was late and it seemed hilarious to us at the time to make photos of us all looking as if we were in fact similar in height. Which it totally was.

**Don't forget to name this photo. Please.