the one where i snuck into my parents house and they forgot i had been gone for 8 months and i temporarily went insane..at least i hope it's temporary

i know, i know... it's been a while. truth be told... i've missed you too.
but the craziness is......... WE MADE IT.
we left arizona reluctantly and at least 4 days later than i expected. at first we were like well, we don't really have anything to be getting back to and then it was let's go for a hike and then we like debbie... and the excuses continued. the worst was when we were like, ok we're leaving sunday for realz. sunday... the only day it rained and seriously? who want to take their 42" plasma out in that?
now all signs are pointing to why the hell did you leave? you know az was made for you!
it started with our adventure out of az. we hit up sedona (beautiful), the grand canyon (seriously, beautiful) and then trucked through the mountains to get to the four corners which i had never been to... where all four states meet. that should have made us turn around. we got there, after driving all damn day--exhausted and having to pee like whoa-- so excited. and then the sign (i'll have to post pictures later because i'm on my parents computer.) CLOSED FOR CONSTRUCTION.
SERIOUSLY? WTF? how can you close a national monument for construction? what on earth do you have to do? move the damn states? ugh. so yes, nice picture of me flipping off the sign. :)
from there, we traveled until our eyes bled and spent the night in cortez, co. we left in the morning with high hopes and the excitement of a new state.
wrong. we spent the next 12 hours fighting for our lives. ok, maybe that was just me. i think erik chose this route on purpose because he knows i'm afraid of heights. we went up and down every mountain possible and just when you think you've reached your limit. seriously, nothing can get scarier than this (unless, of course a clown popped out of the endless cliffs inches away from the edge as our car skirted around these snowy corners-- clowns are terrifying. no joke.) we were stopped at the top of a mountain and forced to wait an hour and a half for them to do something with the road. DO SOMETHING WITH THE ROAD MEANS CLEAR A FREAKING AVALANCHE. NOT COOL.
we got to the end of this insane highway after hours of breath taking turns and me white nuckling the side of the car (beautiful view, i just prefere a postcard.) we landed in ouray, co. beautiful is not the right word to describe it. this place was perfect. tucked away in the middle of the mountains. hot springs. just everything you could ever imagine all snuggled in between a range of mountains. we went into this little shop and the woman was like oh, you just came down the million dollar highway? in a toyota corolla? did you have chains? no? are you crazy? you are so LUCKY. yea, that's right. i had every right to be fearing for my life as we went through those 10 mile an hour turns in a snow storm. but then i got chocolate and a sandwich so it was all ok.
next in our adventures of you really shouldn't have left az was when the same woman told us that the highway we were planning on taking through co had just had a rock slide and she thought it might have been closed.
they have to have a detour route right? well of course, but what they dont' tell you is what should have taken an hour detoured into 6 hours of middle of no where driving in another snow storm with my car so weighed down that it tops out at 40 mph. yep. mack trucks are beating us up these hills.
12 hours of this up and down later, we ended up in winter park, co. still on our detour, crazed out of our minds with altitude sickness. i'm ashamed to admit i kept stating, my head is lead. i have a lead head. why is my head so heavy? i guess that's what happens when 11,000 feet meets no water or food. we ate an entire pizza and felt the same as if we didn't eat anything. needless to say, we were happy to be leaving and be back on flat ground.
so happy in fact that i got a HUGE water and a red bull and decided i wanted to drive through the rest of the way... ok so it wasn't exactly straight through because erik did drive when i started to get crazy and seeing things but while he attempted to sleep after driving through kansas, i got us through missouri (porn, god and arcades!) illinois (big trucks and rain!) and indiana. we ate breakfast and kept going. 38 hours after leaving co, i was sneaking into my parents house.