No, I wasn't letting go of DiCaprio's loving grip nor was I drowning in the Atlantic. But I was deserted on the highway, finding ways to warm myself inside of a broken down car for THREE HOURS. Tres. Thankfully I was not alone...

Let me start the beginning.

I won't tell you about the beautiful WHITE Christmas I had in Texas, or my Christmas present, OR the most amazing ribs I have ever had in my life while in Memphis. This is my "wedding" blog, so I will tell you about the incident that happened on my way from Dallas to Houston for my "wedding" trip.

We left Sunday afternoon around 2 p.m. in relatively good, winter weather. I invited my brother to come along since Jose and I were already spending so much time with him anyway. I offer to drive and start struggling with sleep about an hour into the drive. Two hours later we're almost at empty and decide it's time to pull over. Jose picks me up a bag of "munchies" (which contains my favorite: hot cheetos!) and a huge bottle of water. Fortunately, Jose offers to take over, which I gladly accept and pass out on the backseat.

Thirty minutes later. 4:30 p.m.

I wake up to Jose and Vladi talking, with a slightly stressed tone. I blink and try to get my contacts to focus from my nap hangover and realize we're -- pulling over?! Oh crap!!! Jose got a ticket! UGH. He's going to be so angry.... I look behind me. No flashing blue and red lights? I see Jose push the hazard lights in and my brother flipping through a car manual. Hmm.. this is not good.

[[ Time out ]] As a quick re-cap, in this past year Jose has spent about $1,500 on his 98' Buick Regal from car mishaps. His low coolant light won't go off, and sometimes there are weird noises when we slow down. The likeliness of us having car problems driving from Atlanta -> Memphis (7 hours) -> Dallas, TX (6 hours) -> Houston, TX (4 hours) -> [eventually] Atlanta, GA (14 hours) = VERY, very likely.

[[ Time in ]]

Apparently the steering wheel started to become stiff and his temperature gauge was all the way to Hot. I slumped into my seat and sighed. After a call to his dad, Jose decides to "cool off" his engine. Unfortunately, when he inspects the engine one more time -- guess what he finds? A BELT. The belt tensioner broke!! I'm not car savvy, but I knew this was a HUGE problem when *I* could see the belt from the backseat!!! Jose's face was not a happy one and he looked at me and said "Get comfortable -- we're not going anywhere."


Jose tells my brother and I to get out of the car because although we're on the shoulder, we're on the highway and we don't want to risk someone hitting us. It's 4:40 at this point and still light out. The wind is picking up and I'm pretty chilly. We walk up this hill by a tree and wait while Jose calls his Allstate Roadside service.

He is on the phone ON HOLD for an hour!!! By this point, my brother and I are sitting on the grass, huddled, and I have my scarf around my neck and mouth. Guess what Alejandra is wearing? I'm referring to myself in third person to SCOLD myself. A DRESS with pantyhose!! Granted, I have a tank top under my dress, a leather jacket, scarf, and boots -- but the pantyhose are not blocking wind from sneaking up my dress. It's okay, there's still sun out.


After being on hold for an hour, they let Jose know they found a towing company only 4 miles away that will be picking us up. I ask Jose to move the car to the grass so we could at least take cover INSIDE the car. Jose and Vladi (my brother) get the car moved. But here's the hilarious part -- the windows in the front seat won't go up!!!!!! So while we graciously get to climb inside the car, there's a nice gust of wind invading our body heat via the front windows! Oh well, it's definitely better than outside. Plus, the towing company should be here soon.

Right around 6 p.m. it starts to get pretty dark. The towing company hasn't come, but we are okay because we start to play a card game. I'm starting to get pretty cold and ask Jose to let me use his laptop as heat. I pop open his Mac on my lap and we use it as light to play the card game "cheaters" (very fun FYI!). After almost an HOUR of waiting, we think "This is ridiculous" and call the towing company for the 3rd time.

Ahahahahahaha. Quick! Somebody feed that towing company OR Allstate the belt off Jose's car for lunch! Why? Because you are not going to BELIEVE what they did. After waiting an hour for that towing company, they come to tell us that Allstate ended up calling them to relocate to an accident that had just occurred and for some reason did not CALL US! (!!!!!) So here we were like freezing, retarded popsicles, playing a card game to pass "some" time without knowing that NO ONE was coming for us! The best part is that the towing company apologized and told us there was no way they could come get us. Now it's dark, we have no heat, the car battery is practically dead, and we have no towing company coming for us. The only thing we DO have is my cousin who lives in Houston, driving down to get us. Unfortunately, he is still ANOTHER hour away.

Jose is livid. I'm pretty upset too, but I'm just ready to rip Allstate a new one. After many phone calls with Jose's mom (who was so so so helpful and wonderful), we find a towing company that can come get us. Unfortunately, it will take them an hour. By now, Jose has pulled out my PJ pants, I put them on under my dress, have the laptop providing me some heat, and Jose joins my brother and I in the backseat for some body heat. I give my brother my laptop to give him some heat too and a granola bar I had in my purse b/c he's really hungry. We decide since we can't do aything else, we'll watch a movie. Jungle Book it is! However, before we started the movie, all of the heat coming from the laptop onto my legs made me need to pee REALLY bad. And since we were going to have to wait ANOTHER hour, I needed to go. NOW! I'm sure you don't want the details, but luckily there was a hill with trees around and luckily Jose had napkins in the car. Hahaha. At this point, I didn't even care if there were or weren't trees around -- I just needed to pee.


An hour later, the tow truck arrives! Twenty minutes later my cousin arrives and we all drive out to the nearby town to drop Jose's car off at the shop and drive 2 hours into Houston to my cousin's house. It took my feet about 30 minutes to defrost. I made myself some tea that night but the damage was done. I've had a hoarse voice for the past 2 days and last night it was pretty bad. I'm not "sick" but my throat was definitely affected by the cold wait.

Overall these past two days in Houston have been productive, and really enjoyable :) The breakdown was a pain, but now is just a hilarious memory of me, Jose, and Vladi all hanging out some more. The best part of this Holiday has been seeing my brother and Jose developing a closer relationship. The 2 men who mean the most in my life :) :) Though they sometimes are like two teamed up brothers against me! :P

Anyways... I'll tell y'all about the wedding details later! I gotta go meet with my Godmother and get ready later for New Year's.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

And isn't it funny how I still made time to take photos while we were broken down? :P