They say a picture is worth a thousand words… I, on the other hand, believe a thousand words is much more constructive. It is with this thought in mind that I wish to share my stories of travel and exploration with everyone. I, to put it simply, love to travel. I truly believe that if two roads diverge in a yellow wood, you should bust though the middle and camp out for a few days until you either meet some cool people or get arrested for trespassing (either will result in a fun story). And it is those fun stories that I am going to share here. I have no shortage of experiences and I will share the more interesting ones here. I hope, at the least, I can encourage everyone to visit new places and see new things, yet, more so, I hope everyone can learn from my mistakes and, in some cases, outright failures.
At twelve years old I had really gone nowhere in my life. Not the figurative, grown up, “nowhere” that can be fixed by Mustangs and plastic surgery; yet, in the literal sense. My idea of travel was the Janesville Mall, or on special occasions (when someone was in the hospital) Madison. No money, no time, no reason, or simply no: the answers always had one thing in common when I asked to go somewhere, no.
Fortunately, or unfortunately I suppose, in July of 1999, my Grandmother had gotten sick to the point where all of the kids, including my dad, had decided to make the trek home to say a final goodbye. My family was not exceptionally close with my dad’s half, but there are just some things in life you just do; this was one of them. We decided to drive down to my grandmas house for a week. My parents took off work, my sister and I were already free via summer vacation, so we were on our way.
Looking back at everywhere I have gone, I can now see that every trip can be defined by two things: the destination (Kentucky) and the impediments to comfort (the only vehicle we owned was a pickup truck).
So to cut the story short, my family drove across the country in the middle of one of the hottest summers on record, in a 1985 Ford F-150 pickup. My Mom and Dad rode first class in the cab, while my sister and I enjoyed the wind in our hair by ridding in the bed. Of course we were not without some modern conveniences: we had an old queen size mattress out of a broken down RV, a cooler full of soda and candy, a boom box, and most importantly, a Will Smith CD.
In retrospect, it is hard to think of the trip without pondering the next great “you might be a redneck” joke, or trying to number the laws my parents broke in the several states between Wisconsin and Kentucky. Yet, while the trip was among the most uncomfortable experiences of my life, I did learn a great deal. I learned how to read maps (something that has paid off many times). I learned to understand a southern accent (not that important). Most notably, I learned that by going somewhere new, you are not only seeing a new area, but meeting new people and involving yourself in new cultures and customs. If you do not believe that you can learn something about a new culture by only driving 15 hours, I urge you to do so. The smallest journeys often revel more than those on the grander of grandest scales. I can attest that one often learns more suffering only a few hundred miles from home then living in luxury 1000 miles away. Prominent Jewish philosopher Martin Buber once said, “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” Remembering this can encourage you to continue even in the worst of circumstances (i.e. if you are in the back of a truck, while its 100 degrees, nearly throwing up as truckers spit at you)