While the idea of renewing your vows on a tropical beach at sunset like a pair of histrionic telenovela stars may sound romantic to some, my husband, Sacha, and I found the idea of celebrating our anniversary that way, well, boring.

But we are not the most traditional couple. Five years ago, we surprised several dozen guests at our Upper Manhattan apartment by getting married at what we told our friends and family was an engagement party. Paying tribute to the 1980s hip-hop culture that reared us, we improvised, or free-styled, our vows in the form of searing one-liners that were padded with sincere toasts about love, friendship and devotion. Needless to say it was sublimely intimate, a small victory in a world where social networking made maintaining the element of surprise a near mission impossible.

It was in this spirit of spontaneity, adventure and mostly curiosity that we decided one evening, after coming across a rerun of one of our guilty pleasures, “Ancient Aliens” on the History Channel, while channel surfing, how we would mark the 11th year (we dated for six before getting hitched) of our own cosmic journey together. In the moments after an animated talking head with a tousled mane said something about an indigenous petroglyph seeming to depict intergalactic travel, it occurred to us: We should go on an alien adventure.

Now, before you dismiss us as a couple of conspiracy-minded, ham-radio-listening extremists, let me explain why this went from something you nervously giggle about during the commercial break to a course of action. We had recently spoken about wanting to spend more time traveling within the United States, especially in the ostensibly quixotic Southwest. And I knew from researching the region and from indigenous-American folklore that Arizona was considered by many to be an ethereal place, a spiritual vortex if you will. We would be exploring the world beyond our perception — terrestrial and astral — but essentially discarding cynicism to focus on a belief system that sounds as fantastic as the idea that soul mates actually exist. Not a bad way to mark an anniversary.