I woke twice during the night with bad coughing fits. It woke Future Husband, but thankfully, not D or G. The real silver lining, I’ve discovered, is that being sick and coughing so much has made me drop all the weight I gained on the Cruise. (I’ll blog about that later. No really, I will this time.) It was definitely the worst of the nights since I’ve been sick, coughing wise. Luckily, I’ve stopped waking up with a snot encrusted face.

Our wake up call came at 11 (checkout was at noon), and we picked it up, and just held it to the room so everyone could hear it. We all laughed at the hokey recording, and then promptly fell back asleep. G woke the other three of us 55 minutes later. We all frantically gathered up our things and packed the van back up.

And then we went to Waffle House. Glorious, delightfully trashy Waffle House. The boys all got their hashbrowns with various toppings, and I got my precious Apple Butter. My love of Vitamin AB is an ongoing joke for friends and relatives of mine. Seriously, I put it on or in everything; waffles, pancakes, oatmeal, toast... sometimes I just eat a spoonful from the jar. I freakin' love Apple Butter.

After stuffing our stomachs with far too much grease and sodium for a balanced diet (cause we normally eat so well on tour), we hopped on the freeway and started for Albuquerque. I read for a while, and drew a cartoon of myself, or rather, the nickname Future Husband has given me.

After having worked in the food service industry for a few years, (and my history with the dreaded Upper Respiratory Infections,) I’ve developed a habit of coughing into my elbow, instead of into my hand, which is far more unsanitary. FH has teased me that whenever I do this, with my black hoodie on, it makes me look like Dracula. Thus, Count Bronchula was born.

My laptop’s battery was exhausted, and I knew I would be doing the Albuquerque-to-Phoenix drive, so I climbed into the very back bench and took a little cat nap. We put in a quick stop at a McDonald's to kill some time and grab a snack, but after the people watching became monotonous (which happens pretty quickly in New Mexico), we hit the road again. I was on the phone with my parents when we rolled into town, so I stayed in the van on the phone, while the boys unloaded and shot some pool to kill time.

I went in for the show, which was pretty fun for a Monday night. They didn’t make a lot of money, or sell a ton of merch, mostly because it was loyal fans in the area showing up. But I did reconnect with someone I met ten months ago on the first tour, and her husband offered the guys a show and a place to stay next time they came through town, with a very interesting payment method (free hours of tattoo work if they played a show at his shop.)

The bar closed early, since everyone was there to see them and it was a free show. The boys waited around for their bar payout, and then we hit the road. Well, first we hit Del Taco (oh, Inferno sauce) and then we hit the road.

I lasted for about 150 miles before I realized that I had severely overestimated my recovery. I started feeling feverish, and going into coughing fits. I asked Future Husband to take over for about a hundred miles or so, while I rested my eyes for a bit. I woke up briefly when he stopped for gas (about a hundred miles later) and then again at 7:00. AM. I asked him to drive for an hour and a half and he ended up doing the bulk of the drive. What a keeper! I switched at the first opportunity we got, and finished the 70 miles to his parents’ house, where G and D dropped us off.

Within about 20 minutes, we were upstairs and asleep. Sweet, precious sleep.