Right outside of Colorado Springs is NORAD. I don't really follow military stuff too much, so I was only vaguely familiar with what it actually was. Ray filled me in though and helped me understand that it's basically where they focus on aerospace control/defence/security. Oh and it's also inside a mountain. Plus, if you take one of the NORAD exits off the highway, then a scary guy with a big gun will interrogate you and make you turn around. And if the scary dude feels you're a threat at any point, he totally has the right to shoot you... Ick.... But I basically concluded myself that if this place is so elite and top secret enough to have to be built INSIDE a mountain with ridiculously heavy surrounding security, they MUST be hiding something cool in there. Decepticons. That's what they're hiding in there. Transformers really DO exist!!
On the way there, we drove along the Arkansas River, which was sweet because it's the closest I've come to Arkansas since I left it. haha. It was kinda comforting to think that it flows all the way back there to the South, so I felt slightly connected again and we took a picture. haha.
We stayed the night at Ray's aunt and uncle's place and left early in the morning with the car in tow. The drive was beautiful! Any drive you take through the mountains is totally worth it. This one was no exception. We drove alongside two different rivers, and since one was on one side of the Continental Divide and the other river was on the other side of the Divide, they both flowed different directions. That always fascinates me.
Driving through Monarch Pass was kinda scary though. The roads were all curvy, on the edge of a cliff with either a rushing body of water at the bottom, or just a whole lot of rocks... There wasn't always a guard rail along the edge either. Slightly unsettling... I couldn't get over how high the elevation climb was though! 11000 feet!!!!! That's a third of the way up to where a plane flies!!
Thankfully, because of Ray's awesome driving skills, we made it back safely. Not before we got pulled over by the State Trooper though. It's not a road trip with Ray unless we get pulled over. I'm baffled at the amount of times he's gotten pulled over. What's more impressive is that most of the time he doesn't even get a ticket!! This particular time he was pulled over because the car dolly that was being used to tow the car didn't have proper tags or plates or whatever. The State Trooper was really nice about it though, since we didn't know that it was necessary. He didn't even give us a warning. It was like he just wanted to pull him over to educate him or something. Whatever the case may be, I'm way glad there wasn't a ticket to be paid as a result.
Finally we made it back to the Springs, and we were both really grateful we took the time to do this drive together. It gave us some quality husband/wife time together.
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