Ben and I left the MKE airport at the un-godly hour of 7am.... and dropped into Phoenix by 9am local time. We shuttled over to the rental car location, where I promptly parked my buns on a bench to guard our bags and engage in some people watching while Ben checked in. He got the keys, and we headed into the parking structure to load into our rental car. When we finally found our rental car section of the massive structure, the little Hispanic man who greeted us took a look at our claims ticket and simply muttered "white one right there." WELL, the white one right there happened to be a 2013 Mustang CONVERTIBLE!!!! Ben was smiling like a fool because he knew all along, and I think he enjoys surprising me because of my strange reactions. I really tried to keep my shit together, but there's a slight possibility that I lost bladder control and started squeaking in excitement.
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So we loaded into the Mustang, which had FIVE MILES TOTAL on it, as well as plastic protectors still scattered throughout the car. The owner's manual itself was still in shrink wrap. The glorious new car smell lingered in the air... It was a bucket list check mark: Convertible road trip.
We stopped at the Casa Grande Ruins on our way south to meet up with my 'rents. It was interesting and made me want to build forts like I did when I was younger. We drove down to Oro Valley, which is right outside of Tucson, and met up with my parents at the condo they were renting. They were pretty excited to rock out in a convertible as well.
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One day, we had a genius idea to put 5 people into a 4 person convertible and drive 2 hours to Tombstone, AZ. My mom, Brianna, and I squeezed into the backseat and regretted our decision 30 minutes into the trip. Whoever was sitting in the middle of the backseat ended up sitting on a hard hump, which caused butt cheek numbness. Silver lining: it was a couple hours in a car without wasting sunshine exposure.
When we stopped for lunch at a dusty little town along the way, my mom ended up getting herself stuck in the seat belt in the parking lot of a Quiznos. The jury is still out on exactly how she managed to get stuck with the belt unbuckled yet around her waist... wiggling up so she was standing in the backseat.... and climbing out of the car laughing/yelling at the rest of us that "this is not funny! THIS IS NOT FUNNY! I'M SERIOUS YOU GUYS!! HELP ME!!!!!"
Once we made it to Tombstone, we spent some time walking around. We found a silver mining tour, so we decided to hit up the saloon and then head back for some underground excitement. The Good Enough Mine tour was pretty cool, especially since we got to be decked out in hard hats. As we started to descend into the dark depths of the silver mine, Mama Steph became claustrophobic (I think she flashed back to her Quizno parking lot ordeal of before) and had to leave.
After the tour, and after finding my mom, both Brianna and I found silver rings as a souvenir of our AZ trip. Then we rode back in the convertible..... which is more fun when you have more room. I'm jus' saying.
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Early in the morning on one of the days, Ben woke me up and asked if I wanted to go outside and watch the end of a meteor shower. It's widely known that I do not do mornings as well as other individuals, but Ben was so darn cute that I slid on my flippy flops and ventured outside with him. The desert sky was crisp and the stars were so bright... it was beautiful. We walked up a small hill on a dead end street and laid down on the pavement to watch for falling stars. We saw a couple before the sun started to ruin our view and we began to talk about going back inside. It was at this point that I heard what I originally thought to be a dried leaf blowing across the road. It was immediately following this thought that it occurred to me that we were in a desert, and there weren't any colorful fall leaves blowing around........
Whipping around, I saw that it was a stinky little skunk coming straight for us. I wasn't about to be a part of his target practice, so I took off like a bullet out of a gun yelling the whole time "RUN BEN!! IT'S A SKUNK, RUUUUUN!!" As I was shuffling in my flippy flops down the hill trying to keep up the overly large men's lounge pants I was sporting , I saw a gentleman picking up his morning newspaper at the end of his driveway. He gave he an odd look, but then shouted out a "good morning!" As I cruised by looking like a rockstar, I yelled back a hurried "good morniiiiiiiinggg!" Ben jogged by 10 seconds later giggling.
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Our last day in AZ, we decided to do some hiking in the Catalina foothills. It was an awesome, tiresome, experience climbing up a pile of jagged rocks like a mountain goat.
Being overzealous, I pushed for a 3 mile hike to Romero Pools... which incidentally, included the 3 mile hike back out. I wanted to do this: Romero Pools. However, when we got to the pools, there wasn't enough water in the pools to do any sort of jumping, diving, or swimming. The whole hike was so pretty though, and I think it was worth the extra work!
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| at the Romero Pools with heat exhaustion |
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Ben was really pushing to do a 180 degree turn and head straight to Mexico with the convertible and whatever we had in our single carry-on bag. The idea of running away and living on a beach somewhere south of the border was and continues to be a tempting idea. I absolutely adore the feeling of freedom when you are on the road with no real plans-- just whatever tips your fancy at the time.
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We arrived back to MKE at midnight, and like every other time we get home from a trip, we were attacked all night by a couple of fluffy, purring black monsters. Then we woke up a couple hours later and each headed our separate ways to work.
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xoxo, b
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