Road Trip Experience

When I graduated high school, I was unsure what college I wanted to go to or if I even wanted to go.  Then a crazy idea popped in my head, “What if I went on a road trip for the semester instead of going to school!?”  Once I thought of this, there was no going back.  I know this may seem irresponsible, but I would almost argue the opposite.  It is a great time to take advantage of opportunities like travel because of the little responsibilities we have at that age.

I had already saved up money from working during high school, but this was working at minimally better than minimum wage.  Thus, the road trip had to be completed on a budget.

I started out in Houston, TX driving my beautiful ’97 Jeep Cherokee.  I headed west on I-10 to my first stop being Hueco Tanks.  I’m a huge rock climber so this was an awesome stop for me.  Next I did some backpacking in New Mexico, road biking in Colorado, and met up with some friends that went to BYU in Utah after seeing both Arches and Canyonlands National Park.  I eventually made my way up north to experience the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone.  I then drove west across Idaho and Oregon and ended up in a city called Coos Bay.  There I thought it would be awesome to bike as far south as I could make it along the Oregon and California coast.

After searching for a place to safely store my Jeep, I found a laundry mat to be the most affordable while at least being kind of safe.  I paid the guy thirty dollars to store my jeep behind his store in a grass lot for up to a month.  Then I headed down the beautiful coast into California.  One day, I ended up losing my map and couldn’t find the campsite I planned on staying at before it got dark.  I remember biking in the dark hoping any minute the next curve would have a road sign pointing to my campsite.  It never showed.  I wrapped myself in my tent to keep warm while sleeping under an overpass.  I remember thinking how dirty I felt and couldn’t even get my contacts clean so had to wear glasses for the morning bike ride.  The bike led me to Eureka, California where I decided to call it quits.  To celebrate, I spent $7 on a Chinese Buffet which was hard to do considering most of my meals only cost a few cents but usually consisted of only peanut butter.

I took a bus back up with my bike to find my jeep still safe in the laundry mat’s grass clearing.  That bike ride was one of the best highlights of the trip mainly because I wasn’t really even a biker. 

I then soon traveled down through California with a few stops at Yosemite and Joshua Tree before I arrived back at my house in Houston. It's a trip I will always be grateful I took.

During this time, I also came across a wonderful book by Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts.  I would recommend this to everyone as I can certainly just about all of it.