Happy Surprises

I've been waking up at the crack of dawn for some reason all summer.  I think that must be a side effect of reaching my mid-40s.  I remember hearing my parents' voices before dawn on most mornings comparing calendars and coordinating schedules and whatever else they were talking about.  Since Craig hasn't yet reached his mid-40s, he was still soundly asleep when I woke up this morning and realized I had a few free hours to go on an expedition.  So I happily slipped out of the house without anyone even knowing.

I never really have a plan with these trips.  They're mostly spontaneous except for the camera, the music, and the Diet DP...those things are not random.  Since I've tried driving east a few times, I opted for west today.  I vaguely remembered seeing some wide open spaces when I drove Megan to Denton for Bass Camp one summer, so I typed Denton, TX  into the GPS with some random address just so I could get in the vicinity, turned up the music, and started driving.  

I found a few backroads, exactly one barn, and then a giant lake that I wasn't expecting at all...apparently that's Lake Lewisville.  Who knew that was even there?

...and then there was absolutely nothing worth stopping for.  I snaked through subdivisions and drove down backroads that just led to freeways for nearly an hour.  By 10:30, I went back to consulting the GPS and decided to follow it to that random destination I had typed in earlier.  And here's where I ended up...

I glanced left, and saw a HUGE, random Tyrannosaurus Rex made out of what looked like aluminum foil just standing right in someone's front yard!  He was my last, and maybe my best, picture of the entire day.  He was unexpected.  He showed up when I thought I was going to have to go home with nothing.  And he made my whole day.  If I had known when I left the house this morning that this tinfoil dinosaur would be my only find, I still would have gotten up and gone on this expedition.  He was so worth it.  And the whole day turned out to be sprinkled with little happy surprises.  

I love when life is like that...happily surprising.  It makes me want to keep going on adventures and to keep expecting those little happy things, because if you put them all together, they turn into really happy days.