The looooonnng trip home

So, there I was at 8 30pm on a Monday night doing circles around the sky harbor airport trying to find heather, my bestie who had just flown the 1000 miles we were about to drive. After about 3 good laps, I finally saw her! I'm guessing I was pretty easy to find considering I was creeping along complete with u-haul in tow! I knew things were gonna be interesting because within seconds of heather entering the car she already broke something... see image below for proof of said occurrence!

So we set out on the open road of IH-10. No air blowing through out hair since it was cold outside and basically no scenery since it was night time. Heather had made some requests prior to the trip. The diva inside of her demanded  there be caffeine in the truck that should be handed to her as soon as she entered the truck. I decided to stop by the most favorite coffee shop my lil heart has ever known.. Lux coffee. I will spare you the gush fest of how much I adore this place... I picked up the necessary caffeine prior to picking up heather. About an hour into the drive all three drinks were consumed. I obviously participated since we were starting the trip close to what is my normal bedtime. By the time we got to In-n-out burger I was feeling really good and alert.  I consumed a burger... then I was sleepy. We filled up one last time with gas before we were really going to hit it hard(my paranoia for running out of gas in the desert was at an all time high) After ignoring the multiple warnings from heather on the dangers of '(mountain) dew mouth',  I decided to purchase a much needed mountain dew! After hours on the road and being passed my countless 18-wheelers it was 2am and we pulled into our luxurious accommodations of Days INN in Deming, New Mexico.

The above picture represents what heather deemed necessary for the night: an ENTIRE backpack. And to the right, my bare necessities: phone, wallet, toothbrush, keys, and mouth guard(yes, i am an aggressive sleeper). After thinking I saw some kind of alien life form lurking in the shadows of our room and being creeped out for an hour, I was finally asleep. Heather's alarm decided that it wanted to stay on central time so 5 am was our wake up call instead of the intended 6 am! All in all, I got a solid 2 1/2 hours of sleep. I've taken cat naps longer than that!

So after a belly full of instant oatmeal we were off! In desperate need of a starbucks, we searched and searched... we ended up waiting 150 miles before we actually found one that was convenient to stop at. By that time, we were in El Paso. Heather was so fascinated with that fact that she could actually see Mexico. Although she took that a little too far when about 2 hours later she said 'I can't believe that is Mexico' and I had to inform her that indeed that was just part of Texas with run down housing. So mile after mile we went. Looking for gas once again. Van Horn, Tx.. we had to go to 3 different gas stations to actually find gas. Although there seemed to be a shortage of gasoline in that town, there was certainly not a shortage of meth judging by all the meth mouth that we saw.

I was so thankful to have heather along side of for the journey. Not only for her fun times in company, but also for the fact that driving that alone would have been a terrible experience.. yes my dad was right when he very strongly encouraged me have a co-pilot. Heather ended up driving most of the 2nd day. In fact, she waited till she had almost drove half way exactly to inform me that there was a competition going for who drives the longest. Needless to say I told her to pull over and let me drive. She refused and all that I can say is that the competitive side got the best of me... We had to pull over because I desperately needed to use the restroom and we also needed gas. I felt this was it. My only chance to come back and win the improtu compeition. The score was heather 9.5 hours of driving and me at 6.5 hours of driving. There was about 3 hours of drive time left. I knew I had a chance! We went into the store and I knew I needed to get the keys. Heather saw me looking at them and I had given away my end game.DAMN! Heather quickly grabbed them and held them with a deaths grip closer to her.. I knew this would be difficult. I had made my finally attempt at getting them as we walked back to the car. I leaned in for them and was denied. It was a terrible, desperate attempt and she grabbed them and laughed at me. I felt all hope was long... until I remembered something. A card that I had yet to play. Heather and I had wanted to get lotto tickets before the end of the trip because you never know! We had failed to get them at the previous stops and this was our final chance to get them before the end of the trip. I asked her to go get some knowing full well what I was going to do. She took the keys and went inside. I then moved at a speed I was not aware that I could travel. I searched for and found my HIDE-A-KEY!! I unlocked the door and had the truck started before heather could get back! She got back in the car and gave me quite a look. Then we both laughed for about 10 mins. We are both ridiculously competitive. To be fair, in the end heather beat me by 15mins!! ahhggg the pains of defeat. After 24 hours from starting the trip, we drove 20 hours of that and I was finally back HOME!!

 This is heather and I pretending to dip with turkey jerky... yea... we had been on the road about 7 hours at this point....

THE END