Colorado
My sister Emily and I stayed in Denver with a couple we had never met (not the last time we’d pull that risky business), Kris and Greg. We arrived after a full day of driving, our longest stretch yet. Traffic was awful, or so we thought at this naive beginning, and we were starving and irritable. We were not sold on Colorado. Oh, how silly we were.
We rose to 6,500 ft in a land where things were suddenly measured by their altitude. We thought we were pretty high up. We were impressed by our ability to adapt to life with less oxygen.

6,500 feet? Nothing.
This road forced us up 11,990 feet. The Continental Divide. My white knuckled, violently shaking hands were the only little suction cups holding our tiny car onto the earth. That earth, which has always been below me, jumped miles downward around every twisty turn. The road was populated by semis, which apparently were too tall to take the tunnel and seemed far too clumsy to be on this Wile E. Coyote mountain path. My body beat itself with forceful shivers while my mind scolded, “WHY DID YOU THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!”
It was a great idea.