The Trip of a Lifetime
- Sarah Higgins
- Jan 12, 2020
- 24 min read
Updated: Jan 14, 2020
While I was in school for 6 years, I was unable to take a proper vacation. There were some long weekends to places for weddings (that I'd sometimes also be working doing hair for), to Florida to visit my sister and extended family, and stay-cations. And thankfully, Crane Beach is here in MA so during the warm months, I'd be able to mentally escape for an afternoon or two during the week. But I worked part time and was in class full time for the first two years or so, and then decided to do school full time with work only on Saturdays. So aside from long weekends and stay-cations that would fill up with errands and chores alike (and my incessant need to clean everything), I didn't ever really properly relax for more than a 3 day stretch. And most likely, my one day weekend would end up being spent doing homework. So I decided about 4 years into getting my degree that once I graduated, I'd take a road trip around the country. I know how privileged all of this already sounds, and I am aware that even with all of those little breaks during school, I am still an incredibly lucky person. So I'm sorry if this sounds like petty complaining. But I also know myself very well, and I know that I need to immerse myself in nature to feel better and if I can't do that for longer stretches of time than just an afternoon or walk at night, I become almost permanently stressed out and end up sacrificing my mental health and energy. I think this is why the winter is so hard for me, in addition to it getting dark at 4pm (when is Boston going to switch to Atlantic time!??!).
Plus, my parents were going to do this when once my Dad retired, but that never got to happen because he passed away unexpectedly 7 years ago.
His passing taught me if you want to do something, do it now before you don’t have the time. It’s honestly why I went back to school instead of continuing to think about it, and it’s why I do a lot of things I do now for myself. That's why I decided: when I graduate, I'm getting out of here. For a WHILE. A month, at least.
So we did. And it was perfect. Tim was able to get 6 weeks off from work by condensing his annual vacation and PTO days. So on September 1st Tim, our cat Belmont and I were off on a trip of the country together! I wanted to put it all down into words not only for myself and my own memories, but for my family and friends who have asked us about the trip, and for anyone who is curious about going on an excursion of a trip while trying to save some money by potentially living out of your car.
Before I mention anything else for anyone wondering, Belmont surprisingly turned out to be one of the easiest parts of the trip! We developed a routine and he grew used to it pretty quickly. He's been on day trips with us in the car before, so he only meowed for about ten minutes once we left before retreating to what we'd call his "cave", which was the floor area underneath the back seat that was laid down for our bed and belongings. He learned to love camping and exploring the tent and car during the night. Staying in motels, not as much, but he still didn't hate it. He'd be social and cuddly with us on the motel bed once we would get situated. Here he is sitting on the console between the two front seats, which is where he'd spend the mornings with us before napping the day away in his cave:
Living In The Car
Our system was pretty solid. We bought a Thule carrier for the top of the car that kept our bags of clothing, shoes, laundry, Tim's grill, and tarps for the tent. We kept the back seat of my car down and used the trunk bed as a "mattress" for when we'd camp. We put down a shower liner as a protective measure for our car interior just in case Belmont had any accidents (he didn't the whole time, yay!). On top of that we put my full size memory foam mattress topper, and on top of that my full size mattress pillow topper (I had these on hand because my first "full size bed" was a futon mattress, which is pretty rough on its own, so I had to comfy it up a bit). We brought a light comforter and pillows, so the 2 of us sleeping with Belmont wandering around the car and tent turned out to be pretty comfortable at night. We also got mesh slip window covers for the back windows so we could roll down the windows and have fresh air circulate through the car and tent, without allowing mosquitoes in. Here's Tim trying to look comfortable in the back (I was able to sit up just fine, but Tim being 6'4" it proved to be a little more challenging):
Underneath the trunk bed is where the car's spare tire is stored with plenty of additional space, which is where we ended up storing our tools, emergency roadside safety equipment, extra batteries, and flash lights. We never needed the emergency kit or spare tire, we got lucky! The tools and extra batteries were helpful though.
In the back seat we kept our 5 gallon water jug for water refills (thank you again Jason!!), cooler for food and cold brew coffee, a decent sized tupperware container of camping and eating utensils, our tent bagged up, backpacks of laptops and electronics, pillows, toiletry and shower supply bags, and Belmont's food, backpack, and litter. We kept "Belmont's blanket" (one of his favorite blankets) down on top of our bedding to prevent his food and litter getting on our comforter and we'd just shake it out every night once we were parked.
Underneath the back seat/ behind the passenger front seat we kept Belmont's extra litter, canned food, and vacuum for cleaning the car (because I am a neat freak). Belmont would sleep behind the driver's front seat on the floor most of the day in his cave, which isn't too different from what he does during the day at home - he loves small, dark, cozy places all to himself.
Here's the back seat packed and what it looked like once we were set up camping. We were able to always keep all of our windows completely visible:
Our tent was one that could extend over the SUV trunk door as somewhat of an "extra room". We got setting the tent up in 12 minutes flat. Moving all of our stuff from the Thule and back seat of the car was what became time consuming, bringing loading/ unloading to about 45 minutes total each time. We'd keep the "mattress" underneath the other stuff, so we'd just move all of it into the tent so we could sleep in the back seat when we were camping.
If we weren't camping, we were either staying with family or friends, or in a Red Roof Inn or La Quinta (these are pet friendly nationwide, and there are a ton). We made the mistake of trying to book at motels advertising themselves at pet friendly a couple of times, only to discover they only allow dogs and no cats when we'd get there. We miiight have stayed at one anyways sneaking Belmont in because of annoyance and not wanting to drive any more in the day...
We used an app called HipCamp for camping at cool remote spots a few times, but also quickly learned that KOA's are pretty great (and cheap), as they come with amenities like showers and hot water, a sink to clean your dishes, and sometimes breakfast was included (For anyone going on a camping trip for a week or weekend and you plan on staying in one spot, HipCamp is awesome if you're looking for something unique. It's like AirBnB, but for camp sites)! Here is Tim and Belmont enjoying the morning at a KOA:
We spent on average ~$50 a night on camping sites/ lodging. We splurged a bit the weekend of my birthday when we were in Seattle and stayed at a pet friendly Residence Inn for 3 nights. We also were forced to "splurge" on a ripoff hotel in Silicone Valley, because Silicone Valley. We even had to pay almost $45 to park our car overnight, just one night. I truly despise Silicone Valley. Gas was $5.12 there! Everyone is just out to get your money any way they can. Literally everywhere else was pretty splendid.
The Route
We planned on going everywhere, doing everything, and eating all of the tourist foods. It turned out to be a bit different, but still amazing!! Even though we had about 6 weeks of time on the road, you learn very quickly that in order to get from point A to point B in a country as large as the US, it takes on average about 6 hours of driving every day. There were days we'd only drive about 4 hours to get to our destination, and other days of what we called "power driving" of almost 10-12 hours of driving to either make up time, or just get there so we'd have the entire next day to explore.
We also knew that we wanted to improvise as we were driving, but had some planned destinations along the way. We knew we wanted to do a lot of back roads and more scenic and beautiful routes than just I-90 the entire way to the Pacific coast (which we did end up taking sometimes in Ohio and Illinois). Here's a bullet point list of the trip itself with where we went and what we did while we were there:
Stowe, VT:
- camping via HipCamp in a field on a farm after driving through beautiful New Hampshire and Vermont mountains
- get caught in a rain storm and learn how to fix a leak in our tent at 1 am with our tarps
- experience Alchemist Brewery for some heady toppers
- explore beautiful Stowe
Upstate, NY:
- gorgeous scenery driving through farms, mountains, and rolling hills
- camping via HipCamp in a backyard by a beautiful brook
- drive to Niagra Falls and see the falls on the US side (didn't want to risk going through customs with Belmont)
(Niagra is misty)
- power drive to Indiana to stay in a Red Roof Inn, all while listening to the STown podcast.
- Also had one heady topper for the first time and realized I'm not capable of handling such a beer, as I was completely destroyed and hung over all of the next day
The Northwoods, Wisconsin:
- Meet and spend time visiting with Tim's absolutely incredible family
- clean our tent and supplies to rid them from the mold smell
- enjoy absolutely filling and delicious breakfast, lunch, and dinners that his parents were kind enough to provide
- experience a real Wisconsin Fish Fry dinner on a lake (there are so many lakes in Wisconsin, it's gorgeous!!)
- stay up late each night having wonderful conversations or playing UNO to some Jock Jams (Tim's family knows how to do game night!)
- hike Interstate State Park between Wisconsin and Minnesota to experience some pot holes and great cliff side views of the river in between each side of the park
- explore downtown Hayward
Madison, Wisconsin:
- experience real cheese curds for the first time!!
- have dinner with Tim's friend
- eat more delicious cheese curds
- drive with Belmont to Lake Michigan, walk around Madison near the state house
Appleton, Wisconsin:
- Visit with Tim's sister
- get some of the best ramen I've ever had in Appleton center
- play some Settlers of Catan
Cedar Rapids, Iowa:
- Meet and spend time visiting with Tim's best friend and his family
- eat some delicious dearly missed Thai food
- hike Palisades-Kepler State Park with Belmont in his backpack
- get a workout in (we only worked out twice on the trip, driving takes a lot of time)
- rent some bikes and bike around the city to some restaurants
- play some Mario Party (and win for the very first time! Got all the stars!)
- leave to drive toward the Badlands
South Dakota:
- drive through Sioux Falls only a couple days after they experienced a devastating tornado
- drive through a flooded highway with water up to the bottom of my car (some cars needed to exit the highway because they were too low to the ground)
- stay on a farm in the middle of the state under the stars via HipCamp with a bleating goat, deep baaing sheep, about 30 cats, 4 dogs, 2 eclectic liberal hippies, all while being surrounded by fog covered corn fields beneath a gorgeous full moon
- Next day, drive to the Badlands through some sprawling hills and great plains, witness the Monarch Butterfly migration happening in front of us on the highway and at one point there was a cluster of flying butterflies every 3 seconds
- experience Badlands National Park while listening to Mastodon
- drive to Wall Drug (because there are a zillion billboards telling you to go, big tourist trap of gift shops basically)
- cleaned the massacre of dead bugs and butterflies off the front grill of my car to avoid having hornets try to get a free meal
- stayed at our first KOA in Rapid City (camping and hot water showers? Yes, please)
- drive through the incredibly gorgeous Black Hills and over some very steep inclines and descents
- take in ridiculously beautiful views, continue on to Wyoming
Wyoming:
- drive to Devil's Tower through more amazingly vast prairies, farmlands, and sprawling hills of the great plains
(Belmont is very photogenic)
- continue on to Montana toward Glacier National Park (we had to skip Yellowstone because it was one or the other, Yellowstone will be for another trip!)
Montana:
- drive past Little Big Horn river where my Dad and his best friend went fishing together
- stay at KOA in Billings
- stay on the Blackfeet reservation overnight
- drive to Glacier National Park to see the sunrise over the mountains (Glacier is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen):
- Drive through upstate Montana through more of the gorgeous Rockies to Missoula
- listen to The Clearing podcast
- search for black bears and play lots of car games together while driving in the Rockies
Idaho:
- drive through more stunning mountain scenery toward Washington
- discovered Coeur D'Alene, which I could absolutely see myself living in someday
- tried Huckleberries for the first time (mmm!)
Washington:
- stop in Spokane, get some excellent Thai Food
- drive to Bellevue to stay for a few days
- drive through rural Washington to Bellevue, even past a canyon with a river going through it!
- stayed at the Residence Inn in Bellevue, had an incredible dinner date together in the hotel lobby, enjoyed some champagne for making it to the west coast safely, and went back to our room to watch Abducted in Plain Sight (if you have never seen this documentary on Netflix, it's fucking wild. A girl gets kidnapped by her family friend, claims it's by aliens, and all this crazy shit. It was hilariously bizarre and I highly recommend if you want a good laugh and also enjoy true crime)
- explore Discovery park and walk among what I will forever call the ferns there "Twilight ferns"
- drive to Seattle and walk through Pike Place Market
- learn that Seattle is one of the friendliest cities we'd stop in. Tim even said at one point while I was driving, "I'm getting anxious about not feeling anxious...people let you in when you put your blinker on!" and no one ever honked, ever!
- meet up with Fran and have dinner after seeing her new salon
- explore the Capital Hill area, admire the architecture and culture, and indulge in some mac n cheese pizza
- didn't make it to Olympic National Park because we underestimated the time to get there
Oregon:
- meet up with Tim's friends at a Portland brewery
- explore Portland together: wander through Powell's City of Books, go to a barcade
- we walked and drove past a lot of homeless living in tents both in downtown and along the highway stretches near Portland, which was pretty sad
California:
- Explore the Redwood trees!! This was one of my favorite parts of the entire trip. We drove a backroad way from the highway after visiting Portland to Jedediah Smith Campgrounds and we were able to get a camping spot for $25.
- Make some dinner and sleep beneath the majestic Redwood beauties in the park
Go for a walk the next day in the park for a few hours and meet some pretty nice people along the way. We brought Belmont in his kitty backpack for the walk, he loves hiking with us and looking out his windows as we're walking. Got to also see a bunch of banana slugs!
- Drive from Jedediah Smith Park toward the Pacific Coast Highway while listening to the theme music from Cruisin' USA. The Redwood Forest level in that game is just like how it is in real life, by the way - one second you're amongst the Redwoods, and the next you're driving on the coast. It's nuts.
- Start our Pacific Coast drive down the 101 through some coastal beach roads that quickly turned into winding roads through mountains that had experienced mudslides recently
- Continue down the 101 to a refurbished KOA campground in Eureka, CA. The views along the entire Pacific Coast are just absolutely stunning, so that's all we did while on the coast - we each took turns driving the winding ins and outs of the 1 taking in the beauty as we went. Belmont wasn't too thrilled.
- Continue down the 101 to the Pacific Coast Highway, the 1. Drove all day again stopping for food when we needed to in cute little coastal towns, saw lots of cyclists doing their own coastal trips, and listened to some podcasts.
- Stopped at Manchester Beach KOA for the night. Set up camp, went for a walk along the coast together for a bit, and grilled some food for ourselves.
- Continue down the coast to Redwood Shores. Drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and through San Francisco for a bit, got to see the house in Mrs. Doubtfire, drove over a SUPER fucking steep hill (probably the steepest hill we climbed and drove down on the entire trip, really, even more so than all of the mountains we drove. It was the first time I was vocal about a descent the entire trip), and stopped in Redwood Shores for the night at a stupidly overpriced hotel.
- Explore Redwood Shores and the area where Tim used to work. Went for a walk around Redwood City together as tourists, got some phenomenal tacos, and tried some Philz Coffee for the first time
- Continue down our last stretch of the 1 to San Louis Obispo to meet up with Tim's old boss. Got some drinks and spent the night at their beautiful home.
Arizona:
- Cut into the state the next day and drove through the desert and some more mountains and yellow painted hills to make progress on getting to the Grand Canyon. We ended up driving past Bakersfield CA and into Arizona and stayed at a hotel on the historic Rt 66
- Continue the next day to the Grand Canyon. It was incredibly busy with tourists, but the views and colors were phenomenally beautiful. I honestly would recommend getting there for sunrise though because we got there midday, and without many shadows it was almost impossible to try and grasp the true depth of the canyon.
- Continue to a hotel in Holbrook AZ, then make our way into New Mexico. This was when daylight saving would start getting trippy and bumming us out because Arizona does not recognize daylight saving, and we lost a couple of hours in our day.
New Mexico:
- Drive through all of the red painted desert sands and boulders
- Stop at a native american trading post and get a sticker for our Thule. We stopped and got stickers at all of our stops, actually.
- Drive through Albuquerque
- Tried to stop at a crater off of the highway but just missed its open hours.
- Drive past the Petrified Forest National Park and could see some colors from the highway
- Drive through a huge lightning storm while we were in the middle of nowhere and in vast flatlands, so the storm seemed much bigger than it really was. After that experience, I'm all set with ever wanting to live in Big Sky Country, personally.
Texas:
- Stay in a hotel in Lubbock
- Continue on from Lubbock to Georgetown, which is right outside of Austin and is where Tim's aunt lives.
- Saw our first confederate flag on the entire trip about a few hours into Texas.
- Saw our first actual Trump supporting sign in Texas, too. I'm sure we drove through supportive areas, but knowing we didn't see any signs in all of the past areas both surprised us and made us really happy.
- Drive past some ZEBRAS?! Yes. Why? I Don't know.
- Stay in Georgetown for 2 nights. First night we spent with his aunt and her husband walking around Georgetown and getting some beers after a wonderful home cooked meal. Second day we went swimming, had some thai food, and at night we explored Austin together. Austin is cool!! We walked along 6th street, saw an outdoor micro wrestling match, got some coffee, explored a record store, and walked past a lot of amazing live music coming from cool bars
- Drive by and through Houston. It's HUGE!
Louisiana:
- Drive through and over beautiful swamps on our way to Baton Rouge
- Drive past some bayous that look like Devil's Bayou in The Rescuers
- Drive through New Orleans and the French Quarter, it was too hot to take Belmont out for a walk so we stayed in the car
Mississippi:
- Drive through Biloxi and see all of the places where Tim and his Air Force friends would hang out
- Start driving by tourist destination signs to see plantations...still don't know how I feel about that
Alabama:
- Drive to Montgomery for some of the world's greatest Pad Thai from Green Papaya. Seriously, if you're ever in Montgomery for whatever reason, this is a must have. I can not have Pad Thai now without automatically comparing it to this.
- Get a tour of the area around Tim's old Air Force base
- Drive through some small scale wildfires happening on the highway up into our way to Georgia because of the heat wave they were experiencing
Georgia:
- Start our route back up the East Coast through the Appalachian Mountains
- Hike Tallulah Falls
- Eat lunch at The Frozen Palm Tree. This place was SO GOOD, and it's the only restaurant name I remember from the entire trip. They were so incredibly nice to us and made us feel right at home. Quirky aesthetics, too.
- Drive past Atlanta
North Carolina:
- Drive through Appalachian mountains to KOA in Asheville
- Explore Asheville
- Drive through the Blue Ridge Mountains
- Stop in Little Switzerland which is an adorable town with a gorgeous, charming business with lots of small rooms filled with books, cool telescopes, maps, clocks, and compasses all behind a cute bakery front.
Tennessee:
- Drive through the corner of it into North Carolina (hey, it counts)
Virginia:
- Continue up the Appalachian Mountains
- Stop at Shenandoah River State Park after a less than great pizza lunch after trying to see some caverns (decided not to because it was almost $40 a person to see them, no thanks)
- Go to Shenandoah National Park. This was unexpectedly beautiful, especially for the time of year we were there for. Saw so many colors in the trees.
- Finally see a black bear for the first time on the trip! Was my first time ever seeing a black bear.
West Virginia and Maryland:
- Continue up the Appalachian Mountains
- Drive through the tip of each of them (again, it counts! The views were stunning, but there was also a large storm brewing above so we didn’t want to stick around anywhere)
Pennsylvania:
- Continue up the Appalachian Mountains
- Go to Denny’s for dinner!
New Jersey:
- Take a picturesque backroads drive to Bridal Veil Falls.
- Drive through some more of the woods in the area and see another black bear!
- Take in some views at the top of a smaller mountain in a state park.
New York:
- Drive through the Catskills
- Try to find a hike with no luck due to time constraints, we couldn't find one and kept driving to the Connecticut border for one instead.
Connecticut:
- Drive to Kent Connecticut, which was absolutely stunning!! Their town center is adorable, and I highly recommend this entire area now, especially in the Fall. The colors in Connecticut are breathtaking this time of year.
- Have dinner in New Haven at Frank Pepe's Pizzeria. This was some of the best pizza I have ever had, well done Frank Pepe's!
- Go to Macedonia Brook State Park for a beautifully peaceful afternoon. We decided to close the trip out, we’d spend some time by some babbling water and peaceful thinking outside of the car. Being in the car for that long started to get to us I think, and being outside on a beautiful day, sitting by the water, having deep conversations, and playing some games outside together was precisely what we needed. This was one of our favorite days of the entire trip, even though the scenery of it was relatively simple in comparison to what we had seen.
- Visit my Uncle and have a wonderful conversation catching up about where we had been, what we had done, and spend some quality time with a wonderful person I don’t get to see enough of. Got to check out his new workshop, too! My Aunt was unfortunately not home.
- Drive through more beautiful colors and views on our way to Providence
Rhode Island:
- Drive up 95 through Providence. Remembered that yes, in fact, most ass hole drivers in the entire country unfortunately reside here in the Rhode Island/ Massachusetts area.
Massachusetts:
- Come back home to my Mom’s house to relax, let Belmont out of the car, unpack, and talk to my Mom all about the excursion of a lifetime that she helped in so many ways make possible for us.
My Favorite Parts
There were some definite highlights to this trip, even though the entire experience was an epic one.
- Upstate New York and the Finger Lakes region. I could see myself living here. It’s peaceful, gorgeous, and everyone who we interacted with in the shops that we’d stop at for snacks and restroom breaks were really nice.
- All of Northern Wisconsin. There are so many lakes, everywhere!! Every 10 minutes it seemed like while we were driving, you’d pass a lake. Getting to meet and spend time with Tim’s family was incredible, too. All of them are seriously amazing people. We all had a really great time and did a lot of different things while having a lot of fun, and I’m very much looking forward to our next trip back there to spend more time together!
- Driving through The Blackhills. It’s incredibly gorgeous out there, and the drive through the hills was one of the most fun. Lots of steep inclines with really cool views along the way through towns and scenery alike, and some crazy descents to add some serious experience our mountain driving. Our stay at the Rapid City KOA was one of our favorite nights, too. It was our first KOA stop on the trip, so being provided amenities like laundry machines and access to water and a shower on a camp site was lovely. We got to the site a little earlier, got to chill out and grill together, Belmont got to enjoy some sun in the tent, and our morning the next day was one of the best cozy ones together in the car on the entire trip. We even got to enjoy a pancake breakfast on site!
- Glacier National Park. Oh my gosh, we did not get to spend enough time here. We got there before sunrise and neglected to purchase bear spray before we got to the park, so we decided not to walk around because it’s Grizzly territory. The Going to The Sun road that stretches through the entire park was unfortunately being worked on as well, so we only got to drive less than a ¼ of the entire length. The views and what we got to see and take in for that afternoon though, were some of the most unbelievable of the entire trip. We thankfully got there before a huge blizzard that came in a few days later, so even though the road was closed, we still got to experience some of it in the nick of time. My heart felt sad leaving though.
- The entire Pacific Northwest region. We could definitely see ourselves moving to Seattle someday. Capitol Hill reminds me a lot of Somerville and Cambridge, except it’s even MORE liberal and forward thinking, which I think is great. Although we didn’t get to see Olympic National Park, I’d love to go there sometime. Discovery park was gorgeous though, as was the drive into Seattle and Bellevue. The Cascades are stunning, and I’d love to see their enormity one day when it's not so cloudy. Though we did see some really tall mountains on the trip, this was one of the areas where the peaks and valleys were more extreme here than in most parts (aside from Glacier). Our stay together in Bellevue was perfect, it felt like we were being pampered when we decided to stay in a real hotel instead of a motel or camp site. Having free breakfast every morning was fantastic as well. There is a CrossFit gym here that we already have a trusted reference to as well, so that’s a plus.
- The Redwoods. I’ve literally never felt more at peace in my soul than when we were among these beautiful, silent giants. I can’t describe the feeling I had while being surrounded by living beings that are larger, taller, mightier, and older than most things on the planet. It’s astounding how huge they are, it really is. I miss them tremendously, and I long for the day to walk amongst them once again. My heart was sad leaving this area as well. This was where Tim perfectly explained the different kinds of beauty we had been experiencing. The Redwoods were beautiful in both a micro and macro way, because we got to be immersed in them and touch them. Glacier and the Grand Canyon for example, were comparatively beautiful in a macro way, because we almost couldn't grasp the enormity of what we were looking at in each place.
- The entire Pacific Coast Highway. It’s a breathtakingly beautiful drive with views that are constantly changing. One second you’re driving through the Redwoods, another you’re next to the ocean with the mist rising in the sunlight, another you’re driving through tree tunnels that look straight out of a jungle, another you’re driving against cliffsides and up steep inclines. It’s amazing. It does require complete attention from the driver though at all times, because it's so windy and dangerous at times. California is stunning for so many reasons, I mean it’s HUGE. You can experience so much and see more than you ever thought you would in just a 10 mile stretch.
- Getting to see first hand the Monarch migration to New Mexico (I'm so sorry to the butterflies we killed who were trying to make it. There were a few.)
- Green Papaya Pad Thai. Why does it have to be in Montgomery, seriously?
- The entire Appalachian Mountain stretch. Because of the time constraint we didn’t get to experience more of the desert area National Parks like Bryce and Arches, which I’d love to do one day. But after coming from the 1 and Pacific Northwest Region, being in the mountains and surrounded by trees again made me feel better than I did when we were in the desert areas. Where we stayed in Texas was great for this too, but it’s surrounded by a lot of desert. It’s scary for me being underneath a huge sky with no feeling of safety and constantly wondering if a tornado is about to happen when a storm is coming in from the far distance (but that’s also just my ignorance to what that actually looks like because Tim kept assuring me that we were not going to have a tornado). Still, didn’t love being under the big skies so much.
- Shenandoah National Park. It was so cool to see a black bear for the first time!
- Our last day together in Kent, Connecticut. For the same reasons that I said before, it was exactly what we needed together, and very beautiful.
My Biggest Takeaways
I’m beyond fortunate to have been able to experience this with Tim and Belmont, both who I love tremendously. We’re surrounded by so many amazing people who helped make this possible, and I am forever grateful for that.
There is a lot to see in this country. A LOT. With that said, a lot of the country is made of farmland. Lots and lots of farmland. It’s important that we continue to support our farmers and support politicians who will do that.
Getting to experience up close so many different landscapes made me appreciate the environment even more than I already did. It’s crucial that going forward that we are all aware of our choices every day and what we decide is necessary for ourselves (I know saying this after talking about driving cross country sounds hypocritical, so I’ll take this opportunity to say that I do my part in looking out for the environment by recycling as much as I can, I do my best not to purchase single use plastics, Tim and I carpool, I shop for foods locally, I don’t own or buy much stuff, I reuse whatever I can when I can, and most significantly, I’m not having children). This is even more important at a corporate and company level because no matter what we do individually, it still doesn’t offset the dent that companies could. We all need to hold ourselves accountable in this aspect and speak up if we see what can be improved, especially in the work place.
Sitting in a car for so long every day takes its toll. We were very happy to be up and walking whenever we were outside. We already know that we want to see and experience so much more, and we already have wander lust because of it. This was seriously the trip of a lifetime. We did it our way and decided to remain spontaneous throughout the route, and I’m so happy that we did. We didn’t “want to kill each other” on the road, and we knew we wouldn’t want to, because that’s not our relationship, and I’m so thankful for that. It’s not for everybody, but we love it and need it. Even though we got to experience a glimpse of the greatest places in nature together, some of the best moments on the trip were just the two of us enjoying our company and conversation together. Whether we were sitting by a babbling brook in Connecticut together, or sharing a swinging bench outside a KOA cabin together with some wine.
I knew before we left that Boston’s crumbling infrastructure was shameful, but that was only brought to light more after being in cities across the country that are not only beautiful, but structurally sound. We Bostonians need to speak up and get in touch with our state representatives who have the power to influence decisions made around issues like crumbling bridges and roads filled with potholes. With this said though, Massachusetts is one of the only places in the country that uses policemen for its road construction details. The Boston Police Union profits more because of these details, while the amount of tax payer dollars that go toward construction projects are put on the back burner. There are articles about this issue that you can read up on as well but after seeing firsthand how we’re the ONLY state we experienced not using flaggers, I can’t help but wonder if there is a direct relationship between the continued existence of police unions, bridges that are falling apart not getting the maintenance they require, and where Massachusetts tax dollars go. Please change my mind if you can, because it’s not a theory I like to have.
On the subject of Boston, I now know I’ll be happy to not live here anymore after being in so many beautiful places. I love Boston and I always will. But comparatively, it’s an angry place that is dark for too many hours during the winter, and far too many people all trying to get to the same place. Boston is at capacity, and it’s evident after going to many other thriving and up and coming cities. I think venture capitalists need to look elsewhere. With that said though, it's hard to find places filled with people like Boston has. Boston is very lucky - lots of very hard working, smart, and friendly people live here when you get to know them (we are asshole drivers though, overall). If Tim and I could pick up our gym and its entire community, pack it up, and bring it to wherever we end up, we would, because that’s one of the biggest reasons why we're choose to stay here.
Living in a car for almost 2 months made us realize what we absolutely need, and what we don’t need. It’s SO IMPORTANT for ALL OF US going forward to think about this every day. I had the advantage of being away from my things and my furniture for a long enough amount of time to know that I didn’t need a lot of it, so I donated it. This doesn’t mean get rid of all your stuff. I mean that if what you have is not bringing any value to your life, then get rid of it. The world and the people in it do not need more pointless things that simply take up space, when often times all that does is creates stress.
I'll close with this: If you really want to go somewhere, go. Do it, and make it happen. Save your money toward it instead of buying what you don’t need in the mean time, whatever those things may be. It’s easier than you think it is. Don’t let societal pressure tell you that you can’t go where you want to, when you want to (when you have the means necessary). The opportunity for self discovery and finding peace in a place you didn't think you could is not one anybody should pass up. I hope you all find where your heart sings the loudest, and that you do what you can to make sure you can immerse yourself in that for any amount of time possible.
Thank you for reading!!
Sincerely,
Sarah
Comments