When I was a senior in college, I made a firm vow to myself that I would always embrace Spring Break and travel. Somewhere, anywhere! I knew that I might not always have the means {staycation, anyone?} or the time, but bydarnit, I was going to try my hardest. Since then, traveling has become a type of passion for me. New places, adventures and meeting new people is so fun and energizing! Plus, every trip has left me feeling inspired, creative, and solidly ready to jump back into work feet first.

This winter, Mr. Nick and I tossed around a few ideas of new places to go and decided to keep this particular trip stateside. We set aside fifteen days and had a very loose plan to visit my cousin in Denver and my Nana in Phoenix…and alot of open time in between! With the help of an atlas, Google maps and some blog stalking {who, me?!}, we set out for our Road Tripping 2013 adventure. All these images are taken either on one of our iPhones or my point-and-shoot. I decided to leave my digital cameras at home and bring along three film cameras instead!! Can’t wait to get those scans back!! But for now…our adventure!

Friday, February 22
We departed in the early evening with the intention of driving the 13ish hours to Denver, straight through. Mr. Nick took the first shift and drove for a little over 9 hours {champ!!}. I took over and we rolled into Denver at 5:30am Saturday morning. Just in time to quickly greet my cousin before we all passed out for the night/morning.

Saturday, February 23
After a solid four hours of sleep, Mr. Nick and I set out to find breakfast…and discovered Moscow Mules in the process {Okay, even Oprah knows about these–where have I been!? Note to self, make up a batch for boating this summer!}. A delicious concoction of vodka, lime juice and ginger beer served in a chilly copper cup=awesome start to vacation. After breakfast and a bit of napping, we met up with Luke after work and he took us out for an awesome night on the town. Complete with a micro-brew stop, a comedy show and *yay* more Moscow Mules!!

Sunday, February 23
Denver got hit with a most excellent snow storm!! I get excited anytime it snows, but it was a bummer that the snow played a key roll it not getting to meet up with one of Nick’s cousins who lives in the area…! It was so beautiful and snowed almost the entire day. We met up with a friend of Luke’s and went hot-tubbing in the snowfall. Wrapped up the day with an awesome dinner {we hit Restaurant Week in Denver; all 4-course meals were $52.80/couple in honor of being the ‘Mile-High City’} and called it an early night. In case you’re wondering, in Denver…the drink below is just called a ‘Bulldog’. :=}

Monday, February 25
Initially, we planned to take off for our next location today, but…then wanted to stay one more night! Visited the Denver Aquarium where they have four tigers {why?!} and some awesome marine life. The little fish that swam with their eyes above water just cracked me up!! Next up–a pit stop at REI {REI is to Nick as Safeway is to me. ??} for some new shoes and a light coat for the Mr.! Like everything else in Denver, the REI building was so pretty and we spent well over an hour {or two?} there! After our shopping excursion, we drove over and met another cousin of mine for a Coors brewery tour!! I know. I have alot of family! It was so awesome to hang out and see Megan for the afternoon! As we knew this was our last night in Denver, we met Luke back at work and had a chill night on the town testing our pool-shark skills. I am still not good.

Tuesday, February 26
Goodbye Denver!! The roads were slightly icy and the ice buggers were flying off the other cars, blanketing my pretty Blaze in nasty snow-dirt and making me a complete freak-out mess. We had to stop and get me some Dramamine so I would stop gasping for air and hanging on to the door handle for dear life. {I was fairly certain that we were either going to skid right off the road and down a mountain side or that we would have to use a runaway truck ramp or that we were going to come upon a tragic pileup and not be able to slow down and slam into everyone or…you get the idea. Annoying.} After a white-knuckle, hair pulling 6-hour drive {white knuckles for me, hair-pulling for the Mr.}, we pulled into beautiful Telluride, Co. If ever there were a more charming, magical, white-snow-covered village town, I’ve never seen it. Telluride had gotten the same storm as Denver and two feet of fresh snow piled the mountains and the entire town was absolutely breathtaking. After unloading at our hotel, we walked around and found a cozy brew-pub to sip on some micros before heading back for our homemade salads {health food. Finally!}.

Wednesday, February 27
Mountain skiing is like Mountain Snowmachine-ing…so, so, so much more beyond words better than back at home.

Thursday, February 28
Goodby Telluride and Colorado!! On to warmer destinations and less-snowy scenery. We continued our journey south and drove around the Mesa Verde National Park before finding a hotel and staying in Tuba City, AZ for the night.

Friday, March 1
Packed up and left Tuba City with our sites set on The Grand Canyon!! Mr. Nick really wanted to find somewhere to off-road…so we did!! It was beautiful and warm around the south rim of the GC–nearly mid-50s! 🙂 We have both visited the Canyon before, but it had been a long, long time. It was just as Grand and beautiful as I remembered it to be! After hiking around the Rim for a couple hours, we took aim to find a hotel near Sedona, AZ. Stunning red rocks there…just…stunning.

Saturday, March 2
After preforming some interesting car repair in the hotel parking lot {i.e. taking the squealers off the rear brake pads}, we journeyed up a winding road to Jerome to do some hiking. It was mid-60s and gorgeous–a perfect day to be outside! Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who felt like this as the small mountain-side town was packed with people and bikers taking in the local fare and listening to the open-door-bar bands. We scored some great bar seats at a Mexican restaurant and feasted on three different kinds of locally-made salsa and micro-brews. Then it was time to drive just a few more hours south to see Nana in Phoenix!!!

 

Sunday, March 3
After waking up to Pogette nestling herself in our bed, we helped Nana and James with a Corvette Road Rally that their Corvette Club puts on. It was great to see them, stop by Organ Stop Pizza for dinner and entertainment and hang out on their back porch for some epic games of Farkle.

Monday, March 4
I would dare you to find something more better on a balmy March morning than having coffee on the back porch and then picking fresh lemons and grapefruits–right from the tree!! Oh, so delicious! Oh, so good smelling! After packing up, yet again, we all ventured out to Tortilla Flat for some lavish views and nummy eats. The cactus that grow in this area are so fun to look at–I think they look like people; Mr. Nick thinks I’m nuts. 😉 After getting our table in the dollar-laden restaurant, I ordered the kickin’ hot chili in a bread bowl and it did not disappoint! I like me some spicy chili and that seriously hit the spot. To round out our tasty meal, we walked next door for some hand-scooped ice cream. I got the prickly-pear cactus, which surprisingly tasted just like a mix of raspberry and strawberry? Delicious! Sadly, we had to leave James and Nana behind as we took off for our next destination–Tombstone!!

 

Tuesday, March 5
Tombstone. What can I say? We both had overwhelming urges to drink straight whiskey and chomp cigars while walking down the creaky board-covered sidewalks. Real cowboys and saloon girls walked the streets and gunfire could be heard every now and then, to boot! Okay, probably  not real cowboys and saloon girls and definitely not real gunfire, but the feel of the Old West was everywhere. Very, very cool place. {How cute was our little motel room, too!}. Up until this point, Nick had done all the driving minus the three-ish hours I did on our way to Denver. Figuring it was time for me to get behind the wheel, I offered to hop in the drivers seat as we left Tombstone and, appropriately, headed toward Truth or Consequences, NM. I drove through a Border Patrol Checkpoint {crazy!} and then…got pulled over about two hours later. Awesome. Such is my life. For the record, the cruise control was working every-other-time we started the Blaze and was not available at that time. For the record. Anywho, the officer was nice enough to not send me to jail {which can happen when you speed in Arizona. Who knew?}, and just wrote me a ticket. Lemmetellyou, the Corona’s we sipped and the soak we took in the natural hot springs at our hotel that night helped ease the ticket blow.

Wednesday, March 5
I had found the Riverbend Hot Springs Resort and Spa by a teeny mention in the road-trip book I had brought along. When we pulled in Tuesday, we got the second to last available room–whew! I use the term ‘resort and spa’ here loosely as the rooms are partitioned double-wide trailers–clean and very nice, but nothing crazy fancy! They offer 5 pools to soak in with temperatures ranging from 100-110 degrees. After perusing the three public pools Tuesday night {where there were only 1 or 2 other people in the pool at the same time as us}, we decided to splurge the additional $10 and get a 50 minute private soak Wednesday morning. Our pool was 109 degrees which, in retrospect, is damn hot. I doubt anything will be as relaxing as waking up to soak in a hot, hot water bath with a mountain view and the Mr. by my side. After a filling breakfast at a neat little place downtown, Mr. Nick hopped in the driver seat and we took off for the original Route 66 and Amarillo, TX!! I was super stoked to see the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo as it’s just some super random crazy art. People have said they were disappointed by it, but I thought it was cool and worth the 3 minutes it took to find it. 😉

Thursday, March 7
We’ve reached the conclusion that we’d like to be home by Friday night so we can have all day Saturday and Sunday to unpack, do laundry and just get back to reality before real reality hits bright and early Monday morning! {Oh, and it was super cool to come home to an extra hour of sunlight with daylight savings on Saturday!!}. Driving through the panhandle of Texas {largest cross and crooked water tower}, through the ranges of Oklahoma and into the heart of the US, we entered Missouri. My cousin {yes, another one!} goes to school at Cottey College in Nevada, so we stopped by for a quick tour and hug before continuing on to Kansas City for the night.

Friday, March 8
Last day of vacation already?!?! Mixed feelings, we couldn’t believe it was done already!! In all the hours we logged in the vehicle, I had become addicted to a few new blogs as well as a faithful follower of my old favs {no Facebook allowed for the last part of the trip–how awesome was that!!!}. Kristin over at IowaGirlEats had whipped up this post while we were on the road and it pretty much had me wanting some BBQ for the rest of the trip. Luckily, we were driving through Ames on our last day, so I told Mr. Nick about Hickory Park and he was game–yay!! Holy smokes…it was awesome. Two side salads, two giant BBQ sandwiches complete with sides and a delicious ice cream sundae to bring it all home…and all for less than $20? Yes, we will be going here again!!

Saturday, March 9
Whelp, we made it!!! Nine states, 73 hours of driving, umteen stops at gas stations, too many ropes of licorice to count, and one speeding ticket later, we’re home!!!! Rest assured–the Blaze was completely unpacked and as for those four bags of lemons and grapefruits from my lovely Nana? Yeppers, you bet I zested, sliced, juiced and froze them all!! Fresh juice to last me all summer and then some–total and complete score!!!

Lots of eye candy coming soon on the blog–weddings and babies galore, I tell you!! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend, a super safe and fun St. Patty’s Day and I’ll see you back here on Monday!!

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