Trip photos

So here’s my long over-due more-detailed entry, with photos.  Guy and I picked up our rental car on the morning of Friday the 15th.  You don’t really know what kind of car you’re getting until you get there.  The rental reservation said "Nissan Sentra or similar" and our experience has always been that it ends up being the "or similar."  In this case, it was a Mazda 3 hatchback, 2012 model with about 4000 miles on it.  It was a cute car and fun to drive and I think we were both very happy we got that instead of a Sentra.

We kissed Cindy, Jayson, and the baby goodbye and quietly commented to ourselves how we weren’t sure how they were going to survive without us.  We ignored the GPS and headed south in Rhode Island to have lunch at Marchetti’s, a tasty little Italian place that we knew would be our last good meal for a while.  After that it would be a lot of crappy rest-area options.

Then the real drive began.  Our plan was to drive overnight straight through to St Louis.  It would be about 20 hours of driving, but it would also be the most boring part of our trip so we figured it would be good to get it over with at night.  We hit an absurd amount of traffic in New York, even taking the Tappan Zee bridge instead of going through the Bronx and Manhattan on 95.  The traffic was irritating, but we were in good spirits, and we knew this would likely be some of the only traffic we’d see on the whole trip.

We drove and drove.  Every hour or 90 minutes or so we would stop and switch places.  The one of us that wasn’t driving would sleep, but neither of us got any real decent sleep over night.  Late at night we stopped and at fast food.  Early in the morning we stopped for at Starbucks somewhere in Indiana. We passed through a bunch of boring little middle-of-the-country cities and most of them weren’t noteworthy.  I snapped some photos from the moving car anyway.

 

By the time we crossed the river into Missouri, we were both ready to be done driving.  We were staying at the Hilton Garden Inn near the airport, and we got there at about noon.  Check-in time was 4:00PM, but they were able to get us a room right away.  Good service.  Guy and I were both feeling dirty and gross from so long in the car and so little sleep.  We each took a long shower, then we made love (enjoying that we had some privacy for the first time in a long time), and then showered again.  

We considered taking a nap, but after sex neither of us were feeling tired, so we decided to go see the sights of St. Louis.  My apologies to anyone who reads this who might be from St. Louis, but I was really under impressed by the city.  I’m sure there are good parts somewhere, but I just seemed to keep running into the bad ones.  After a wrong turn which took us over the bridge back into Illinois (and about 30 minutes worth of traffic to turn around and get back) we ended up at the Gateway Arch.

The Arch is something I’d always wanted to visit, and I was a little excited about this side-trip.  It was intensely hot and we had to park a little ways from the arch, but we got to walk along the river in the heat and see the arch from a distance, as well as this strange statue in the river.

 

Not to sound defeatist, but I’m sure the arch has already been photographed in every possible way, but I still took a bunch of photos myself.  I’d like to think I got some creative angles, but yeah, it’s all been done before…

 

Then we went inside.  The museum below was air conditioned and that by itself was wonderful.  There was about an hour wait to take the "elevator" to the top, but we decided it was worth it.  When would we be in St. Louis again?  We visited an exhibit about Louis and Clark while we waited, but it was painfully not-interesting, so we ended up sitting on the floor playing with our cell phones.  We were just happy to not be driving and not be out in the heat. 

Finally, it was our turn to go up.  Or so it seemed.  There was no organization at all.  After waiting in what we thought was a line for another 15 minutes, we finally got frustrated and pushed our way to the front.  Why give us a ticket for a certain time, and then just put us in another line?  So we get through the first line and then we are placed in a second line!  Infuriating.  We were standing in the second line realizing we might have another 30 minutes to wait still when this woman approached us and said she could move us to the front of the line if we were willing to go up in different "cars."

I didn’t know what she meant by cars, but we took the opportunity.  We moved up the front of the line and that’s when we saw the cars.  I wish I had thought to take photos of them.  They are these little tiny boxes that supposedly fit five people each.  A chain of eight of them climb to the top of the arch like a train.  It’s not an elevator at all.  The people who had told me you take an elevator to the top had clearly been lying, or had never actually done it themselves.

I got in a car with a husband and wife and two young kids.  It was cramped.  The daughter was probably about ten and when the car started moving up the arch she burst into tears.  I felt bad for her, but really didn’t know what to say so I didn’t say anything. The experience riding in the car was a little creepy and scary and part of me didn’t blame her for crying.

The view from the top was nice.  It was a fun thing to do and I’m glad we waited it out.

 

This is a zoomed-in photo of the statue in the river, taken from the top of the arch.

 

And this is what the little observation room at the top of the arch looks like

.  The floor is curved like you would expect, and the windows are tiny.

 

We had good St. Louis ribs at a place called Pappy’s and then returned to our hotel.  Our plan was to leave pretty early the next morning, so we decided getting to bed early would be a good idea.  Of course, neither of us really understood how much we appreciated not having my sister, Jayson, and a baby around, and when we laid in bed we took advantage of the privacy by having sex again.  I couldn’t tell you the last time we had sex twice in the same day and it was wonderful to hold Guy and told feel so close to him.

We go up early the next morning, showered, and left the hotel by 7:00.  Back on the road, but at least we were feeling refreshed.  Our destination was Amarillo, Texas.   Not much to see on that drive, as the hills and trees turned into a whole lot of nothingness.

 

We got into Amarillo just around dinner time and we checked into our hotel.  The plan was to go to The Big Texan steakhouse.  I’m vegetarian, but I knew they’d at least have good side dishes for me, and Guy could get a nice steak.  The place was a bit of a tourist trap, but the food was genuinely good.

 

We went back to the hotel and had sex.  It was becoming a theme.  We couldn’t keep our hands off each other.  It was so nice to just be alone with him and have that kind of intimacy.

The next morning we left for the Grand Canyon.  A quick stop and Starbucks, and we got to see a little of Amarillo.  Seems like a nice place, but it’s funny how it has a distinct beginning and end, an on either side there is just nothing.

 

We drove through New Mexico and into Arizona.  We got into Williams, Arizona where we planned to stay a few days.  Out hotel was nothing special, and after we checked in there was still a few hours of daylight left so Guy insisted we go look at the Grand Canyon at dusk.  It was an hour drive to the Canyon from the hotel (so a two hour round trip) and I really didn’t want to do all that extra driving, but he was pretty insistent.  

The Canyon was pretty at night and I regret I didn’t get any photos. My mind was on other things.  As we stood there admiring the sights, we started talking about how much we have enjoyed having alone-time together and how great it’s been to have so much sex.  We talked about how we were looking forward to more of that is the vacation continued.  I was looking out at the canyon, thinking about how happy I was and how much I love Guy, we he abruptly dropped to his knees and produced a ring box out of nowhere.

Of course, I instantly knew what he was doing and I felt mildly embarrassed that someone might see.  He and I had been talking about marriage for a while now and I strongly suspected he would be asking me sometime soon.  I did not think it would happen on the trip.  I knew I wanted to marry him and I knew I would say yes.  He knew that too because I had told him as much.

So I hate to admit that my first reaction was to feel embarrassment instead of excitement, but it’s true.  I looked around and saw that we were alone.  I told him of course I’d marry him.  He put the ring on me.  He cried.  I probably wouldn’t have cried if he hadn’t, but after I saw the tears in his eyes, I started crying too.

We drove back to the hotel and had sex.  Then we showered and had dinner at a Thai place.  We ate some soft-serve at a Dairy Queen.  Everything seemed really normal.  Except I was engaged to be married.

 The next morning, back to the Grand Canyon.  These are only a few of the photos I took.  It’s sort of silly to take so many photos, because they don’t really do it justice.  Someone with a great camera and a wide lens could take some amazing photos, but my little digital isn’t going to impress.

 

 

I know it’s hard to tell in photos like this, but this one is looking almost straight now off a drop-off with no railing.

 

After a full day exploring the canyon, driving around, and taking photos, frankly we had seen enough.  I know you could spend a full week looking at the canyon from different angles, but unless you are hiking down into the canyon, it actually gets boring pretty quickly.

Driving back to our hotel in Williams, Guy asked me how I felt about maybe going up to Vegas the following day instead of spending more time at the canyon.  It’s only like a four-hour drive, and compared to how long we had already driven that really seemed like nothing.  I eagerly agreed.

He seemed relieved.  I thought it was because he was as bored with the Grand Canyon too.  But instead he tells me he had already booked us a room at the Rio as a celebration of our engagement.  That was really great of him, but I admit I don’t really like surprises and part of me was a little disappointed that he had planned part of this trip without involving me or telling me.  I got over it quickly, though.  

The next day we drove up towards Vegas and stopped at the Hoover Dam for a brief visit.  I’m really glad we did

.  The Hoover Dam was amazing and I loved touring it.  It was close to 120 degrees out there, but we sucked it up and walked around.

 

This is the Lake Mead side of the dam.  I walked over there to take some photos even though it felt like my clothes were about to burst into flames.

 

The next two are of the new bridge they built to keep traffic from driving over the dam.  It’s hard to tell from the photos, but the bridge is shockingly high.

 

Then on to Vegas.  Guy is 21 but I won’t be until March.  We we’re there to gamble or do anything that would require me to be 21, but I was still a little concerned that someone would card me and give me a hard time about my age.  It never happened.

Our hotel room was on the 19th floor and had a great view.  This isn’t the best photo, unfortunately, but it’s the only one I took out the window.

 

Our room had a jacuzzi.  When you go into a hotel room and see a jacuzzi, your first though should be, "I wonder how many people have had sex in that."  We had some pretty incredible sex in this one!

 

We had dinner that night at Gallagher’s at New York New York.  Not owned by the famous watermelon smashing comedian, but I asked several times just to be sure.

Guy spent about 30 minutes at slot machines after dinner and I went up to the room to call Cindy and make sure everything was OK.  I told her about the proposal and she already knew!  She said Guy had been talking to her and Jayson about it for weeks and that she ever helped pick out my ring.  I thought that was kind of funny and it seemed just like the sort of thing Guy would do.  He would go to everyone and mention that he’s proposing and ask, "Do you think she’ll say yes?" just because he wanted to be reassured.  

Before we left the next day we went to the top of the Stratosphere tower.  Seemed like fun, and we’ve already gone to so many high-up places, it was a nice addition.

 

Do drove back to Williams, AZ and spent one more night in the hotel there.  The following morning we drove to Flagstaff, turned in the rental car, and flew home.  We did an incredible number of things in a short period of time and I really think it was one of the best trips I’ve ever taken.

Also, I think it made me fall slightly more in love with my soon-to-be husband.