There and Back again - Weekend in 4 states

My husband heard me. I talked about Project Book Babe for weeks. Stephenie Meyer and Shannon Hale, my two favorite authors, at the same event in Arizona. So DH came home on Thursday and said okay. This is a big deal because he use to cringe and the thought of a 5 hour drive to see my parents. Maybe it wasn't the drive. lol.


DAY ONE

So he left 2 hours early from work on Friday and we jumped in the minivan and headed south on I-25. Only 12.5 hours from Phoenix/Tempe. Coming out west has seriously brought out a part of our family we didn't know existed. Here's the map of our trip:



We never would have done this back east. The humidity would have killed us and our old minivan use to stall when we would get off an exit.

So I drove for the first 2.5 hours (the only driving I did the whole weekend). The winds thru southern Colorado were crazy but the temperature was fabulous. The closer we got to New Mexico we saw more and more of nothing. The desert started to sneak up on us and you could see forever in every direction. We still could see some of the Rockies. We got into New Mexico and I saw Santa Fe! I started singing Santa Fe from The Newsies. Love that movie.

All thru New Mexico the winds were crazy. It was really dark by this point but we wanted to try to get at least half way before we stopped for the night. We drove thru the dark for sometime and then we saw the most amazing light show. Albuquerque was an ocean of lights in the darkness. It was amazing and because it's so flat out there you could see the whole city. It was surreal. <--- (that word is gonna be used alot).

So about 40ish miles west of Albuquerque is a little town called Grants. We saw the exit. Tons of hotels and thought we could at least get to the Arizona border before we stopped for the night. The weather had different ideas. We got about 2 miles past the exit and the wind started blowing really hard. And something was blowing in the wind. What?!? Is that sand? NO! It's snow. That's right. We left Denver only to get stopped by a blizzard in the desert.

So we got off the next exit, the one with no hotels. And we waited for the snow to blow over. Nope. So we got back on the highway and very slowly with very little visibility drove (praying the whole way) about 5 miles back to Grants and got a hotel room for the night.

And that was day one. We started out in Denver (Southeast of Denver actually) on Friday and stopped in Grants, New Mexico at around midnight. We stayed at a Super 8 for about $62 taxes included. And we filled up the tank once that day.