Mommy Always Wins: "A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving."

~Lao Tzu

A few weeks back, after each being handed rather life-changing news, a good friend and I (whom you'll recognize from this post) decided that the next Friday, a night out was in order. Girl bonding was required.

Seven days prior, we realized that not many other folks were going to be around on this particular upcoming Friday night and the prerequisite "What should we do?" emails were exchanged.

At some point over the weekend before, I threw out a, "Why don't we go on a little road trip?" email.

To which my friend replied, "HELL YES."

And from there, five days before leaving, our "girl's night" turned first into an overnight road trip to somewhere in state to a three day long trip to nowhere. We were intent on driving where the whim took us, and decided only that we would travel west.

On the Friday morning in question we packed up her car and headed...south.

Because we could.

We had no plans, no reservations, just a few changes of clothes, gas money and travel-worthy tunes.

We traveled through five states and two time zones, and ended up in Nashville with just enough time to find a hotel and dinner, then change before heading out on the town.

Chicago

Self-portrait in Indiana

Louisville

Broadway St - Nashville

We drank a bit too much and were crazy enough to bring home stories we'll be telling and retelling for years. We high-fived a midget, y'all. And did a shot called the Johnny Cash. And took pictures down at the waterfront at 3:00 in the morning.

Saturday morning we were a bit overhung and sat in the warmth of the sun enjoying coffee before touring the Grand Ole Opry.

We don't look *too* hungover - just don't zoom in...

Saturday afternoon we literally flipped a coin to decide where we'd go for the day: Louisville. (We shoulda gone to Memphis, but eh...we did what the coin declared.)

We ended up with three or four pages worth of ridiculous shit we said scrawled onto a hotel notepad, because it was all just that funny. (Most can't be shared with the general public, but at one point, something made me say, "Whoa, I think that just put hair on my chest!")

We drove and took in the scenery and drank way too much diet coke. We laughed till we nearly wet ourselves and ate greasy drive-thru food. Sunday we headed back home, to temps thirty degrees colder than where we'd just been.