6:15am, Thursday morning, normal routine.\u00a0 Amanda gets up, showers, and does whatever else takes 45 minutes before coming to wake me up.\u00a0 \u201cHoney, it\u2019s 7.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s a standard wake-up-call \u00a0from her, and an anything but standard response from me.\u00a0 \u201cCome here for one second\u201d, I say.\u00a0 \u201cYou know how you\u2019re always telling me that I can never surprise you?\u00a0 Well, today that\u2019s all about to change.\u201d\u00a0 I get a long, drawn out, \u201c\u2026Okay\u2026\u201d in response, with extra emphasis on the \u201ca\u201d sound.\u00a0 I continue, \u201cWe\u2019re on vacation, actually have been as of last night, and you have exactly 2 hours to pack and get ready until we need to leave the apartment.\u201d\u00a0 The response?\u00a0 A simple, but totally genuine, \u201cHuh?\u201d.\u00a0 A few moments to sink in, and then she \u00a0immediately says, \u201cWell what do I need to pack?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cEverything\u201d, I tell her.\u00a0 She asks \u201cPlane or Car?\u201d\u00a0 I respond with a quick, \u201cCan\u2019t Say\u201d. \u201cWarm or Cold?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cCan\u2019t Say. \u00a0Okay?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOkay.\u201d\u00a0 I tell her \u201cI\u2019ll go get the suitcases down, and you start packing, and now you\u2019re under two hours!\u201d<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s how the day started.\u00a0 I really didn\u2019t sleep the night before at all, watching the digitized analog clock on my charging cell phone tick away from about 3am on.<\/p>\n
Moments later I hear a loud, \u201cWhat about the pets?\u201d \u201cAlready handled, dog to your parents, cat stays here with a trough full of food.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cSo they know what\u2019s going on?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cNo more questions until we arrive, okay?\u201d \u201cOkay!\u201d<\/p>\n
Amanda absolutely loves surprises, but also loves asking enough questions about things to ensure that nothing is ever a surprise.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s one of those conundrums that makes absolutely no \u00a0sense to anyone in the world but her, where it is of course completely logical.\u00a0 This time, however, I will not be accused of being bad at surprises.\u00a0 The old saying \u201cLoose lips sink ships\u201d is one that I kept in the back of my mind for the past 4 months, and aside from the man who I bought the diamond from, the woman who I bought the ring from, and her father, whom I asked for her hand, this was a secret that was all mine.<\/p>\n
Packed, confused, curious, and very quiet, we loaded the car with suitcases (I\u2019ll pluralize \u201csuitcases\u201d and just leave it at that) filled with everything from swimsuits to winter coats.\u00a0 We drove to her parents\u2019 house to drop the dog off, stopped for breakfast, and sat in virtual silence while everything was working through her brain.\u00a0 Amanda still couldn\u2019t process how her 11 am meeting had been canceled, and everything else that she had planned on doing that week\/weekend had been rearranged without her knowing about it.\u00a0 I was starting to realize that surprises could in fact be fun, especially for me!<\/p>\n
Stomachs\u2019 full, driving on the interstate, we get to the junction of I-70.\u00a0 If we take I-70 west it\u00a0 means Colorado mountains, and if we go east it means we\u2019re heading towards the airport.\u00a0 After I could no longer (safely) wait to make my turn, I quickly steer the car west.\u00a0 Now her brain is really narrowing down.\u00a0 \u201cWhere are we going?\u201d might just as well have been written on her forehead.<\/p>\n
After passing the Summit County mountain resorts of Keystone, Breckenridge, and Vail, we pull off in Beaver Creek, one of our favorite spots for R&R.\u00a0 Gas, Red Bull, and more driving…no Beaver Creek this time.\u00a0 More silence. \u00a0More confusion.\u00a0 We are now further west than Amanda has ever been (within Colorado boarders) and her brain is cranking on all 12 cylinders.\u00a0 Turning away from Aspen, the resort towns are now essentially out of the picture, and now I\u2019m feeling more of a \u201chuh?\u201d coming from the passenger\u2019s seat than anything else. She\u2019s thinking every exit could be ours, and it really was a cool experience.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve never taken a surprise road trip, I highly recommend it.<\/p>\n
90 minutes later, or 4.5 hours into the drive, we exit the tiny county road that we are on, and come to some really pretty Colorado wine country near the quaint little town of Paonia, CO.\u00a0 Google Paonia, and the map that comes up is actually quite cute; very simple.\u00a0 Finally, she says, \u201cHow cool, wine tours, I thought we may be doing this\u201d.\u00a0 If she really thought that or not I will let you decide for yourself.\u00a0 But no, we have another 30 minutes to go outside<\/strong> of Paonia.<\/p>\n From here, the directions that I was sent from our final destination, read like this\u2026and I quote: \u201cYou are now driving along a road flanked with cherry and peach orchards\u2026\u00a0 Go 1.2 miles across some railroad tracks, and .5 miles further turn left…\u00a0 Continue on this road as it meanders through the lush farmland into an arid sagebrush ecosystem and back into farm and ranch land.\u00a0 As the road begins to curve right (by the bright blue house)\u2026 turn left.\u00a0 This road winds through some sagebrush dobbies (a new word for me, referring to the pattern of sagebrush that I\u2019m apparently supposed to look for)\u2026and after a \u2018dangerous intersection\u2019 sign, the road becomes dirt again for the rest of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n Well the directions go on like this for a bit, and about 15 minutes later, after Amanda is convinced I am going to hide her body somewhere that she\u2019ll never be found, we arrive at our destination.\u00a0 Just like that, voil\u00e0.\u00a0 The journey is just beginning\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"6:15am, Thursday morning, normal routine.\u00a0 Amanda gets up, showers, and does whatever else takes 45 minutes before coming…\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10104259587489742_110062855004561":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[18,15,16,17,19],"coauthors":[5384],"class_list":{"0":"post-45","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-tom-shanes-world","7":"tag-customer-story","8":"tag-proposal","9":"tag-relationships","10":"tag-rordan-shane","11":"tag-shane-co-couple"},"yoast_head":"\n