The road trip that decided it

Mr. NH called me from his work last Saturday, "Do you want to go to Colorado?"

"Uh, yes!!!"

So, we started making phone calls to see who could watch Goosey for us for the weekend. This was a major road trip on last minute planning, fifteen hours each way, not something a ten-month old can handle. We called and called and called, and I had just about given up on the trip when he called back and said the magical words. "Start packing."

I was nervous, really nervous. This was the first time being away from Goosey over night, and we were going to be gone the whole weekend. I was panicky and really had to concentrate to be able to pay attention to what I was doing.

I over packed, for all three of us, I worried that I had forgotten something, and had to restart cleaning jobs that I walked away from as I remembered something else that I had to do. As we waited away the hours till departure time, packing and cleaning the house, my nervousness went away, not to return until the goodbye moment.

The goodbye moment came and went, leaving us child-free for a weekend, me nervous and excited, and 1,000 miles away from our destination.

We spent our driving time listening to Samantha, the voice from Mr. NH's younger brother's gps. Samantha was pushy, and didn't like it when we chose our own route or tried to program in a road we wanted to take. We made u-turns and shut her off. I think my next road trip I'll leave Samantha behind, she can tell someone else every 10 miles how many miles to the next direction. I think her favorite phrase is 'keep left.'

Mr. NH and I have been talking about moving out of Minnesota for the past few months, well longer than that. We decided that we want to move to Manitou Springs, Co. The only problem was that neither of us has been there, so road trip.

Reaching Colorado seemed to take forever, and once we did get in the state it seemed to take forever to be able to see the mountains. I had been reading aloud to Mr. NH while he drove, and kept stopping about every sentence to scan the horizon for the Rocky Mountains. When I finally saw them, that was it, no more reading.

I fell in love with the scenery in Colorado. The mountains are so beautiful, but I especially loved the rolling landscape around the mountains. Everything is exposed, nothing hidden. To me it feels like you have to be yourself there, you can't hide who you truly are. Different from Minnesota, where it feels like you can hide behind the corn fields and trees. Minnesota feels like a cocoon sometimes.

I also fell in love with Manitou. It has a small town feel, it is touristy, and has art everywhere. There was a mosaic on one of the underpasses. Just about everyone we talked to was from somewhere else, they had chosen Manitou.

We stayed for less than 24 hours, but it was worth it. We know we'll be back, we know we'll live there. It is the place we will have more kids, I will be part of the knitting group that meets weekly, we'll join in the weekly talks about the environment and sprituality at the local bookstore, and shop at the co-op. It will be home, just not soon enough.