Find the car. Take the trip.

What we learn when we step outside the box and challenge ourselves in the simplest of ways

Paige Kornblue and her GMC Yukon Denali XL

This story starts at some small, random dealership near Fort Lauderdale. Not at a well-known one and certainly not at Ed Morse GMC. That comes later in the story.

This story starts with a slime ball.

The Fort Lauderdale area car salesman who sold me the minivan I needed to shuttle three young kiddos, an aging father and his aide around all day… every day.

We had just lost my mom to cancer and my dad was starting to slow down due to some falls and a dementia diagnosis.

I stuck with the slimy car salesman that November 2018 because this guy had the minivan I wanted. This, after weeks of searching and working with car salesman after car salesman, walking in and saying to them right away "I'm not buying a car today! I'm just looking."

With a husband often out of town for work and a father who no longer had the capability to fully reason, I was to do this car buying job on my own and I was determined to do so... suddenly becoming another proud mom in a minivan.

This past March, not long after Dad passed away, we no longer had a need for a vehicle low-to-the-ground and so... I did it again. I ventured on a solo SUV shopping journey - but this time, I found some good guys to help.

I had recently met the top dog of one of our country’s leading auto groups at a charity event. His name was Teddy Morse of Ed Morse Auto Group and I asked him to connect me with someone who would sell me a preowned oversized SUV - without all of the drama.

And that’s just what happened.

And with this new vehicle, I found I now had the keys to a whole lot more.

This one allowed for decisions and journeys I hadn't taken in awhile.

I loaded the kiddos in the Yukon XL and ventured from South Florida to a camping site then on to the North Carolina mountains for Spring Break. Once summer came along, we did the same thing… but kept on going, enjoying a 41-day east coast road trip to New England and back visiting new sights and old friends.

I say all of this, not because you might be interested in the used cars I have purchased or the road trips I have been lucky (and crazy) enough to take with three littles in tow, but because these experiences weren’t always easy.

“We can do hard things,” best-selling author and activist Glennon Doyle reminds us.

“There is no easy way to do hard things,” adds author Nedra Tawwab.

Sometimes it takes unexpected circumstances and a little nudge from others to help us find our hidden inner strengths and talents.

Oftentimes, they have been there all along.

You just gotta find the right salesman.