Aftermath: Awakening

A Vacation to Remember

Eric is up at the crack of dawn, by the time Shannon wakes up Eric has the truck fully packed, and he's standing in the kitchen making breakfast when she comes out in one of his oversized T shirts. "Get some breakfast, get dressed. We're going on an adventure." He says grinning as he drops the egg into the skillet. He glances back in time to see her face light up. She turns and nearly sprints back into the bedroom. By the time he has the bacon on her plate and the eggs done she's back and ready her hair in a messy bun. Eric makes his own plate and sits down beside her as she shovels food into her face. Eric raises an eyebrow and laughs to himself. "Slow down, you might swallow the fork." She looks up at him and smiles pushing an empty plate to him. "Guess you're ready to go aren't you." Eric finishes his own plate and gets up. "Well lets go."
"Don't we gotta pack the truck?"
"Nope, already done."
She looks at him with a look of shock.

Eric grabs the maps from his printer and taking her hand, they walk out to his truck. He opens her door and she climbs in, Eric walks around and climbs into the driver's side. For a moment he sits there, feeling her excitement fill the truck, he slowly pulls out his keys from his pocket feeling her eyes burn through him. After a moment, he finally starts the truck. "What?" She glares at him. "You know what." She takes his hand as they back out, she plugs his phone into the auxiliary cord and begins playing music through the trucks speakers. He turns onto the I-20 ramp, and stays in the left lane merging onto 35W North. The traffic starts getting heavier where the constructions closes off all but the right lane, Eric sighs out and looks to Shannon. "Always. I always seem to hit this traffic." Eric says rolling his eyes; Shannon laughs. "It knows how much you just love to sit here." She looks over to him and places her hand on his thigh. It takes them an extra 45 minutes to get through the congestion before finally finding their exit.
As the night time falls and his mind has wondered down its many corridors of thought he can hear Shannon's slow and steady breath beside him as he drives. Eric smiles deep in thought, everyone seems to think love is always going to be that burning fiery passion that consumes two people, at first that's true, but as time continues the butterflies turned into a calmness and comfort, that burning fire is now a campfire which burns and keeps them warm and comfortable, and keeps the outside world at bay. He drives through the darkness with the trees encroaching either side of the road and the canopy keeping the light from the surrounding stars from reaching them. Shannon takes his hand and pulls it to her as she sleeps mumbling something he couldn't hear. He smiles wondering if this moment would last forever.

"You're failing your job of Navigations I thinks we should have been there an hour ago." Eric looks at her as they pull into a gas station.
"No! I got this! We traveled," She glances and digs through the pile of maps in her lap "Uh we where supposed to take exit number..." she pauses squinting into the map. "Its smudged."

"Babe, I got it already. We are like 100 miles off, 141 miles to be exact." He laughs poking her side as he parks in the gas station parking lot.

"Cheater! We made a deal! We wherent to use GPS unless...." She trails off scowling at him.

"Unless? Unless What Shan?" he grins
"We get lost." She folds her arms across her chest and looks out the window.

"Are we lost?"
"No! we..." She pauses. "We were just taking a detour!"

"Uh huh, wanna go in and get some ice cream?"
Her scowls goes to a pout.
"That's not fair at all..."
"Who said I have to be fair? Hmmm?"
"You suck sometimes ya know?"

"I love you too." He says laughing as he gets out.

The road they take to get to their first destination, twisted and turned through the different rock formations of the desert, Shannon sits shotgun taking pictures of anything cool. As they drive the colors of the rocks begin to change and take on reds and whites, and a yellow tan color in some places. Every few miles Shannon yells stop so she can get a picture of the scenery, on half of them they both got out and took pictures of each other. "Imma take this one and frame it."
"Shannon, I don't think we have wall space in our apartment for all the pictures you've said youll put on the walls."
"Oh hush you!" she pushes him playfully as they stand agaist the front of his truck as they overlook the rock formations. "This place looks so beautiful." Eric looks from the surroundings to her and smiles as the sun glints of her hair and shadows her face. "We haven't even gotten there yet." Eric says. Shannon smiles and looks at him. "So? Its still something we haven't seen before." Eric laughs and ushers her back into the truck. "Its getting hot out here." Eric sits down in his truck and looks over at her as she opens the door, and smiles. "Well, it should take us an hour if we quit stopping." He pokes her side as she gets in.