With only 47 seconds left on the clock, I am in way too much of a rush to catch you up on the first four days of the week. If you have no idea what Serentripity is or why Heather, Cheryl, Misty, and I spent last Sunday in pursuit of Shine then do a quick recap of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and meet us back here for the nail biting conclusion. 

As I said yesterday:

At 2:17 we were l-i-t-e-r-a-l-l-y still in the FREAKING car...

SITTING

AT

A

STOPLIGHT!

With 47 seconds left, the street light turned green and, like a race horse with blinders on, I took off. Heather, Cheryl, and Misty could have been talking to me, but if they were I didn't hear a word. I was 100% focused on parking my car and being somewhere by 2:18 p.m.

Anywhere.

23 seconds left.

Store fronts were to my right and left, but I couldn't make sense of any of them quickly enough to choose the one that would be most meaningful.

12 seconds left.

And there was no parking.

8 seconds left.

What about parking?

4 seconds left.

"$#!^, we forgot about parking!"

"Claudia, right there! Pull in that spot."

That one spot. Fifteen to eighteen cars were parked in front of the building and, second from the right, sat the one and only available parking spot.

I threw my car into park and, all at once, we jumped out.

Disoriented, we searched for a clue - something that would tell us where we were...

A historical marker was the first thing we spotted. Relieved, excited, but mentally exhausted we stopped to document the moment with a photograph.

We couldn't process what was happening quickly enough, so it took us a minute to decide if we liked where fate had placed us.

And then we saw the quaint brick street lined with these yellow flags and each of us breathed a sigh of relief, suddenly sure that we were exactly where we needed to be.

Dublin, Texas in... Erath County (we found our "E")!

Home of the world's oldest Dr. Pepper Bottling Plant

During the very week of their 120 birthday celebration...

Also, the one week of the year when they are officially allowed to rename the town.

There are many reasons why this 120 year old bottling plant, located 120 miles from where we started, felt like exactly the right place to be.

The bottling plant has withstood the test of time.

They, like us, have a sense of occasion and like to spread shine.

They value substance over style, which is why they continue using their original recipe and all of their original bottling equipment.

And, they pay attention to details which was evident by all the pomp and circumstance involved in their 120th birthday celebration.

I could go on.

Needless to say, we felt gratified and validated by 3:30 p.m. when the four of gathered our things to head home. Our mission was accomplished. We'd found the letters S-H-I-N and E and we all agreed that Serentripity worked by leading us to a small corner of the world that does, in fact, shine.

Before leaving we:

Left the people of Dublin our signature note and...

collected our hard-earned "E".

The time spent with friends, the memories we'll share forever, the laughter, the wonder, the pursuit of Shine, the friends we made along the way, the things we learned (and bought). In the end, the whole experience was...

Just what the doctor ordered!

Here's to friends and serendipity.

Thanks for sharing in our adventure. Shining off until Monday.