Trip

THE TRIP

It all started when my friend and I were off-roading and one of us had a marvel ideaÐ'... "Wouldn't this be fun to do in Colorado?" So it begins, I mention that I have a cousin that lives in Colorado, and that we could stay with him and his family. We planned the trip for August 10th. Turns out this will be the most liberating and most independent event in my life.

Thursday, August 10th rolls around, we get and start loading the jeep, and hit the highway. Just knowing that we were on our own was such a big challenge for us, never in our lives have we gone on trip with out the financial support and guidance of our parents. As we approach the first big city Omaha, I have to guide him and tell him which exits to take and when we got out of there it was such an accomplishment.

After Omaha we had to fill up the tank for the first time. Never in my life have I argued with my best friend about the stupidest thing. Who, is going to pay for the first gas fill-up? After about 10 minutes of arguing we finally decided to flip a coin to see who would pay. Turns out there are some rules about coin flipping that I didn't know about. We just had a mutual agreement to alternate who pays for gas. That was only the first major delay in our trip.

As we start on the long stretch of nothingness people refer to as the Nebraska highway, I realized that a box shaped automobile isn't the most aerodynamic car in the world. Turn out this is going to be a 16-hour trip to Gunnison Colorado instead of a 14 hours. Just one more delay on our trip.

Have you ever felt so overwhelmed, like the weight of the world is on your shoulders? That's kind of how I felt, when trying to direct my friend through the city of Denver. It was one of the most challenging things to try and explain to someone else what I see on the map and how to get through the Mixmaster's of Denver. We only ended up stopping and asking for directions about every other exit. Just one more small delay in our trip.

As night falls the Rocky Mountains rise, right into our path and get to my cousin's house we had to travel through Monarch Pass which is probably one of the hardest ones to drive due to the lack of lighting and curves. Since his jeep