Alex and I have just returned from a 10-day, 2000-mile, 4-state road trip celebrating our 2nd anniversary (and our ability to tolerate one another for long, isolated periods of time on the most lonely stretches of U.S. highways, byways, and otherwise uncategorized dirt roads). Congratulations to us – we survived the trip, and another year of marriage!

29 Cool Things My Favorite Husband and I Did On Our Southwest Adventure

1. Found a rock as big as my melon-head.

2. Should I? Hmmm.

3. Checked out some red rocks even bigger than my melon-head.

4. Checked out a red river.

5. Camped in the dessert.

6. Found the constellation Scorpio in the night sky.

7. Learned that when the sun sets in the dessert, hundreds of scorpions scamper through the campsite hunting for prey.

8. Mental note: say a prayer of thanks to the God of Deadly Nocturnal Creatures that Utah and Arizona scorpions did not show particular interest in my bare toes. Promptly rethink flip-flop strategy for next time.

9. Made friends with the locals who were neither scorpions nor related to those in the scorpion-like genus.

10. Made fun of the non-locals who seemed to invade the joint.

11. Slowed for Hula-hoopers (Deana, is that your handiwork?).

12. Hiked part of the Grand Canyon rim under a full moon.

13. Watched the moon rise over 200 million-year-old rocks.

14. Watched the sun set over 220 million-year-old trees.

15. Watched the sun rise over a 6-million-year-old canyon.

16. Learned that we are “but a pimple on the nose of father time.”

17. (Some of us, more determined than others to prove our minute, finite existence as said Poppa Time’s unsightly blemish, attempt death-defying, Darwin-Award-winning feats in the name of the perfect canyon shot.)

18. (Others a little more determined to cling tenaciously to aforementioned Schnozz of Time avoid Darwinesque feats at all costs.)

19. Speaking of outliving your Darwin counterparts, never hike the canyon between the hours of 10 AM and 4 PM.

20. Hiked the canyon rim from 11 AM to 2 PM. Outran a thunderstorm on said canyon rim after almost running out of water.

21. Ate a hearty camper’s dinner.

22. Did a little toilet-top cooking.

23. Ate so much food that we broke the weight limit for a mule trek to the canyon floor.

24. Stood on the floor of an extinct volcano.

25. Stood on the rim of a 50,000-year-old meteor crater.

26. Stood “on a corner in Winslow, Arizona”

27. Drove a lot of busy miles.

28. And a few not-so-busy ones.

29. And loved every amazing, impossible, timeless second of our southwest adventure!

Happy Anniversary, my one and only true true love and number one favorite person in the world!