Road Trips

First off, I would like to thank God for siblings. There is a reason why we have them, and why others are given to us through marriage. If it weren’t for Corey and Amanda, saying good-bye would have been much for painful…for us anyways. You see, we set out for New York New Year’s Day. We decided to have a “good-bye” breakfast at my mother and father-in-laws house the morning that we left. Both sets of parents were there, and the siblings, well…they barely made it. It felt like a scene from the “Hangover” as bits and pieces of stories from the night before were reminisced (hence their “pain”). The hours and minutes that were left out of these stories only made me wish that they had been followed all night with a camera crew. Again, I want to thank the Lord for my family! If it wasn’t for the laughter, we would have been harping on the sadness of good-byes. It made it that much easier, and reminded me again of how blessed I am to have the family that I have (both old and new)!

Bryan and I set out around 11am, leaving life as we knew it in the past, and looking onward into the future together. We have taken our fair share of road trips in the past few years: Boulder to Orlando, Littleton to Ft. Lewis, Washington, Georgia to OBX, North Carolina, Georgia to New York, and finally our final destination from Denver to Dexter. This road trip went quite well, solely for the fact that I actually participated in driving since it was my car. You see, my wonderful husband has a truck with a stick shift (ok, so he bought it before we were married, but still) so I could never participate in the driving across the country because I’m stick shift impaired. I tried once. On our road trip from Colorado to Ft. Lewis, Bryan made me try. He pulled over at a gas station in Idaho, got out of the front seat and told me it was my turn. I started the truck ok and shifted into first, then second, and the next thing I know Bryan is telling me to start driving. Approximately 20 minutes after I left the gas station, red and blue lights started flashing in my rearview mirror. Yes, I got a speeding ticket. Yes, I did not speak to Bryan for two whole hours and a pouted and stared out of the passenger window. Yes, he did feel bad. And yes, it didn’t take long before he pulled over into a Red Robin, ordered me a chocolate milkshake, and gladly paid for my speeding ticket. And on that note, yes, I do know how wonderful of a husband I have!

So back to our drive together. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as the speeding ticket, but we are goofballs when we are together and sang obnoxious songs, danced, and told ridiculous stories as we rode on long stretches of highways past cornfields and dirt, small towns, and big cities. We made it to Chicago around 4am and stayed with Jeff (my father-in-law) at his apartment in the city. I have to give a shout out to Jeffrey for his impressive taste in decoration. I’m not gonna lie, I was amazed by his taste. Anyways, we slept for about 3 ½ hours, had some cereal and coffee and began the last stretch of our drive towards our home. The weather was great up until we left Chicago. The snow started to hit pretty hard that afternoon and continued all the way home.