Trip to Colorado

The day after Christmas I was woken up at the abysmal hour of 3am, after having gone to bed at 12pm. That's never a good thing. I rolled back over for another 30 minutes but then it was time to actually get up, in the dark, with no sight of sunrise in the near future. Blah. Thankfully, I had almost everything all ready to go before I went to bed. J.R. and I got ready and were waiting to walk out the door at 4:00 when we had promised.

Then we got a call from my dad. He overslept and they were running late. If you know my dad you know how incredibly unlike him this is. He is always the one to get the whole house up. He is definitely a morning person, unlike anyone else in my family (except J.R.) So J.R. and I were left to sit around and wait for my family to show up. They actually made it to our house pretty quickly considering how late they woke up.

We loaded up the church's minivan (which wasn't an easy task considering there were five adults in the vehicle and very little storage room) and we were off. J.R. made breakfast burritos for everyone which we ate as soon as we were on the road and said a quick prayer for safe travels. Almost immediately after eating, Greg was out. J.R. and I shared the back bench which gave us a little more room but don't kid yourself it was anything but comfortable. J.R. tried to nap and I think he dozed off a little. I unfortunately was wide awake and couldn't get back to sleep. I borrowed Greg's brand new ipod.

Our first stop was Vegas (don't worry I'm not going to talk about every little stop) where we had some breakfast. Ok I know I already said we had breakfast on our way out. But lets get real that was 3 1/2 hours before and we were all a little hungry. I think after that stop I was able to get a little rest but pretty sure I still hadn't slept. The windows were pretty fogged over and it was difficult to see out. The next thing I knew I wiped off the window and I was in a winter wonderland. It was pretty crazy and oh so pretty.

Our journey slowed to a crawl once we got to Utah as we met up with a snow storm. It was pretty scary and we took it nice and easy. When we stopped for lunch it stopped snowing which was nice but my mom was able to get us trapped in a parking lot for a brief minute when she was turning around. It was a pretty funny sight. I wasn't sure we were going to make it out of there. As we stopped for lunch we received quite a few strange looks from the locals. They could definitely tell we weren't from around there. As we were leaving lunch someone else was in the same predicament that we had just been in. However, they needed a big push from a few guys to get themselves out of the parking lot. We made sure we took the longer way around to avoid the same fate. Wow we just aren't used to driving in this stuff at all. Life is considerably different when you have to consider the snow.

Then as many other travelers that day our windshield fluid line froze. My dad had to stop every so often and throw snow at the windshield to clean it off. So far you can see this trip was quite the adventure. We made one final stop before we made it into Colorado. I had become fairly car sick. Thankfully, I hadn't thrown up but I was feeling rather nauseous. That is when my mom took over the driving and I was her navigator. Typically, a navigator’s job is to sit there and not do a whole lot.

That night the job was a little more involved. We hit that same snow storm yet again on our way into Colorado. It was pretty crazy as you couldn't see the lines in the road. My mom took it nice and easy but I was having to constantly help her see the lines and direct her driving. As we were driving through the storm I teasingly told my mom, "Light speed ahead!" The snow was coming at the screen and it really looked like the movies whenever a spaceship begins moving light speed. It was pretty funny. But you probably had to be there for that one. ; )

As soon as we hit the outskirts of my grandparents little town the snow all but died. We made it safely! We checked into our hotel around 7:30. The entire trip took us about 14 hours! Ugh! Imagine with me for a moment being stuffed in the back seat of a minivan for 14 hours. Not a fun thought is it? But we made it.

We learned later the night before they had sent my grandfather home after they drained his lungs of fluid and his heart rate was normal. So we were thankful that we weren't going to have to visit him in the hospital. Funny story. The doctors were trying to give him an oxygen tank to carry around with him. He kept refusing saying he didn't want to get addicted to it. I almost fell out of my seat when I heard that one. We all promised we wouldn't say anything to him about it as we didn't want to make him feel bad. But amongst ourselves, well, that was free reign. The comments about trying to kick our oxygen habits were let loose.

We arrived at my grandparents and they still had no idea we were coming. My uncle and aunt and cousin arrived a few days before as a surprise. My grandparents kept asking him when my mom and aunt were coming. He kept telling them he was there and that was it. Well, then my aunt showed up earlier that day. So they were asking where we were. They told my grandparents that we were shopping, which wasn't exactly a lie. :) We walked in the house and my grandpa was sitting in his old recliner he's been sitting in since I was a little girl. The first words out of his mouth were, "I have a family full of liars!" It was really great to see him and everyone else for that matter. I could tell it really meant a lot to him and gave him quite the pick me up.

So that was our long and treacherous trip to Colorado. I'll be back later with more details of the trip and hopefully some pictures. I've been waiting on pictures for quite some time now.