Guest Blog: How Thelma and Louise came to be By: Kris Hubbard & Kim Cole

Back when Kim and I first became friends we were neighbors, and our husbands worked together on the ranch. We were having an unusually harsh winter and as many of you know, on a ranch, the cows always come first! Normally, the guys would plow us out, but they were too busy tending to the herd. After being snowed in for days, the county plow went by, and Kim and I saw this as an opportunity to head to town for supplies, as another storm was predicted to hit that day. So we loaded up and headed off.
When we came out of the grocery store, it had already started snowing again, and we noticed that traffic was backed up all the way out of town. Oh noooo! Now we feared we would be stuck in town! We spied an officer at the head of the roadblock, so we proceeded to approach him to find out why the road was closed. He informed us a semi had lost its load and was blocking both lanes of the highway. But we also learned it was well past our turn off, so we asked if we could go through. The officer stated, “Nope! If I let one go, I gotta let you all go.”
Now this was back in the day before cell phones, so I pulled into a nearby restaurant which had a phone booth outside and called my husband. I apprised him of the situation so he wouldn’t worry when we didn’t return home. His response to me was, “Just go around it!” Being the dutiful wife that I am, I promptly hung up the phone, said to Kim, “Get in! We’re running it!” And she obediently did as she was told!
While I was on the phone I observed the policeman who had been manning the road block was driving off. What I didn’t know, was he had left a volunteer in his place. We slowly approached the roadblock on the wrong side of the road, as to look as though we were going to stop and ask a question. The volunteer glanced in our direction and continued his conversation with the first car in line. We fully believe he thought we were going to stop! However…I PUNCHED it! Kim and I both screamed as we went flying out of town!
Now, did I mention that my two small children were in the car? (Yes, they were safely secured in their seats!) All the way home we kept looking in the rear-view mirror, expecting to see red & blue flashing lights. Nothing…still nothing. Meanwhile, from the backseat, we hear “Mommy, are we going to jail?” Dear lord, what have I done?! What do you say to that, when you don’t know the answer? About a minute after that, the other one pipes up, “Mommy, I have to pee!” In my heightened state of adrenaline, I shout, “Tie a knot in it!”
We finally made it to our turn off, drove about a mile down the road and stop to let my son relieve himself. While out of the vehicle, Kim and I examine the license plate, hoping it is covered in snow. As luck would have it, the snow Gods were on our side for a change! It was totally obstructed!
We arrived home still reeling from our narrow escape, found our husbands in the shop and began to relive our experience to them, as we nervously kept glancing down our driveway. The guys could not understand why we kept thinking the sheriff was going to show up and haul us off to jail. “WHAT DO YOU THINK!?!?!” We exclaimed. We just ran a manned road block!” My husband replied, “YOU DIDN’T TELL ME IT WAS MANNED!!!” Oooopsies, did I fail to mention that!?
We never did get caught, so our fear of going to jail never came to fruition…but if it had, we would have called Everett Cole (Curly) to come bail us out! As he too, was always looking for the next great adventure!
And the rest is history! From that day forward, we have been known as Thelma & Louise!