Cross Country Venture

Last year at school, upon telling people I’m from California, quite a few would ask “Did you drive here!?” I smirked at them and scoffed, “Of course not, we flew”.

Well the joke’s on me now. My mom and I have decided to drive my car across country. The ever-classic way of getting to college.

I’m anticipating our trip to follow the lines of “insert epic road trip movie here”. At first we’ll be very psyched and the first day will be full of adventure. Somewhere along the lines, one of us (possibly both of us) will snap for whatever reason. But, in the end, the trip will have brought us closer and the camera will pan out with us crying and hugging on campus.

Ok, so maybe no camera—but it will be a miracle if one of us doesn’t go mildly crazy around the 1,736^th mile.

Looking at the positives, my mom and I are really excited for our 3,146 mile journey. I’ve been doing a lot of research on some of the places we’ll see along the way. Sadly, the World’s Largest Ball of Twine is in the middle of Kansas and we’ll be taking a more northern route—through Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota and ten other states.

But, there are a lot of other cool stops along the way:

1. Mount Rushmore – This will probably be the first and last time I’ll see this impressive carving. We pretty much tailored our trip just so we could visit it. And plus it’s motivation to get through Nevada and Wyoming.

2. Independence Rock - If you played Oregon Trail you’ll know exactly what this is. I won’t lie when I say I’m super excited to go here!

3. Wall Drug Store - So apparently it’s just a drug store…but they have a really good advertising company. They have signs lining the highway, declaring how many miles away you are from it. There’s even one in the South Pole!! Check out the picture.

They may not be “cool” in the traditional sense, but I’m a geek and honestly can’t wait!

So that reminds me, the whole reason that I decided was to start a blog was to write about my 7-day journey across the United States. My mom is going to be writing her own as well (when she finally starts one, I’ll post the link). It should be really interesting to compare the two.

We leave in 11 days and counting.

Where to Begin?

There’s so many different ways that I could start out this first post, but I think I’m just going to dive right into the middle of it all.

I was born and raised in Sunny California and I absolutely love where I live. When it came time to start looking about colleges, I had no expectation of going out-of-state at all.

But, when I visited a beautiful campus in Connecticut, I fell in love.

Now there’s two things you have to know about me: (1) my heart knows what it wants; and (2) I’m very stubborn. Put these two traits together and you get one stubbornly determined girl.

So needless to say, I applied to this school that is roughly 3,000 miles away from home. Before I even got the acceptance letter, I was already dreaming of which dorm I would live in and where my favorite place on the quad would be.

So once it was official, I packed up my life on the Left Coast and set out to explore the East. I followed my heart across the country and don’t regret a single thing.

My freshman year went smoothly, but at times all I wanted to do was hop on a plane and be home. And of course, now that I’m home for the summer…all I want to do is be back at school. Oh, the irony.

Anyway, what I hope to do with my blog is to write about my experiences and feelings while being away at college, to post a few tips, and to generally entertain anyone who is away from home (whether you be 3 minutes or 3,000 miles away).

Since practically everyone who’s gone away from school knows what it’s like to step out of their comfort zone and start a new life, I hope that there will be many people who feel free to comment and interact through my blog.

So here we go, and don’t forget to “follow your heart”.