Brave Girls Road Trip - Day 1

The adventure begins!

We've finally started our long-planned road trip to the Brave Girls Camp in McCall, Idaho!!!

"We" are Michelle, Kelli and I.  

18 months in the planning.  

We are restoring ourselves.

The only requirement is to have FUN and BE FUN.

We started out by picking up Kelli at the SR Fairgrounds, right after she completed the Harvest Fair 5K run.

Michelle kicked off the fun by bringing paint daubers for us to use to decorate the windows of her truck.

Of course, we jumped right in and wrote loud slogans to proclaim our adventure - yes, dorks R Us!

We drove straight up through Sacramento and Truckee, enjoying the nice weather (while it lasts), as well as the delightfully quirky directions of "Heather", our vaguely Korean-sounding gps virtual guide.

Once we crossed the border into Nevada, we finally started to feel that we were gone.

Then, suddenly, behold!

CABELA'S!

In the "flesh", so to speak.  Since Kelli and Michelle had never been there before, we just had to stop.

And of course, take the requisite photos in front, aided by kindly fellow tourists.

It really is an amazing experience, Cabela's.  Sort of like Disneyland for outdoorsy people.

Kelli was captivated by the taxidermy.

 After a few quick purchases, we were anxious to get in the car and get to our hotel in Reno.  

We were tired and a little cranky, after skipping lunch and being in the car all day.

Alas, our room was not ready, so we had to cool our heels in the lobby for a few minutes.

And then the muzak started to play.....

And we started to boogie and get silly.

Enjoying the freedom to totally embarrass ourselves, without our kids being there to roll their eyes at us.

Something tells me there will be lots more self-embarassing moments to come.

Finally, they gave us our suite and its pure luxury, really a 2 bedroom apartment...

Now Kelli had prepared a surprise for us.

Being a surprise, we had no idea what she had planned.

I figured it would have something to do with a casino or a show or something.

No, being the BRAVE GIRL that she is, she had found online the most

fabulous local scrapbook store, Scrapbook Paradise

and had set up a private class for us with the proprietress, Laura...

Kelli had arranged for Laura to use some BRAVE GIRL stamps (created by our own heroine,

Melody Ross) and to design NAME TAGS for us to make for ourselves to wear to the camp!!!

Goosebumps!

How absolutely thoughtful and creative and wonderful was that?

And we completely fell in love with darling Laura.  She's a hardworking young woman who took over this business and its thriving - its the last LSS in Reno.  She really knows her stuff and loves this crafting as much as we do!  She's hoping to get Tim Holtz to come and teach at her store - and we'll definitely come back for that.  We want to support her and promote her to our friends (consider yourself notified).

We wanted to pack her up and bring her with us to BRAVE GIRLS CAMP.

After all that excitement - and a "little" shopping - and still, no real food all day,

we were famished.

We jumped back in the BRAVE GIRLS-MOBILE and attempted to maneuver the confusing construction detours, while I tried to keep "Heather" focused on our destination (that Heather has a mind of her own).  Eventually we ended up back near our hotel, not where we intended, and had dinner at a nameless 24-hour sports-bar-casual-dining-gambling-outdoorsy-place.

We were just grateful to sit down and eat.

Now we're back in our suite, relaxing and debating whether to kick back or go down and use the gym and pool.  

What do you think we'll choose?

Seven more days to go!

Stay tuned for more wild adventures......