before luce had driven the nineteen hundred miles up to emerald college with her parents a week earlier , she could have named each time she 'd been outside texas-once for a family vacation to pikes peak in colo-rado , twice for regional championship swim meets in tennessee and oklahoma ( the second year , she beat her own personal best in freestyle and took home a blue ribbon for the team ) , and the yearly holiday visits to her grandparents ' house in baltimore .