Our Trip

A few years back, I had this idea to drive across the country during my summer break from school.  I figured I would just pack up the essentials and go.  What nobody tells you in life is that somehow, out of nowhere, things get complicated.  Whether it was financial reasons or school commitments I was never able to put this trip completely together... until this year.  Starting in the fall of 2015, things started to shape up.  My summer was void of major commitments; no grad classes, no weddings, nothing.  Financially I was in great shape.  The only other piece is my significant other, Lea.  She works at an environmental education center and was the assistance summer camp director, major issue!!! Lea and I had a talk and she was ready to take her professional career to the next level and wanted to pursue a graduate degree and from a personal level she was ready to move in with me.  So as the stars aligned and this trip was presented, it all made sense.  She would leave her job in June of 2016 and we would pack up and travel across the country exploring as many natural areas as we could along the way.  For nearly 50 days we would be co-pilots driving from park to park and enjoying all that America has to offer.  So where were we planning on going?

For years I have had a map hanging in my office at my house that I would put small post-it notes on when I saw a picture of a cool location or venue I would like to visit.  As this trip was becoming a reality, Lea and I began to identify locations along a route that would ultimately end up with us traveling close to 9,000 miles and taking 49 days.

The best part of this story begins in December of 2015.  It was during this time that the regular season of football is wrapping up and playoff football is beginning.  With the transition from the regular season to the playoffs, the biggest change in the games is with the commercials.  Everyone knows the Super Bowl is when the "best" commercials are played, but they are just the newest.  The playoffs are also a time when new commercials come out and some of them really caught my eye, especially the car commercials.  Those iconic images of someone driving through a mountain pass or along an ocean drive resonated with me and I had the epiphany, "why not ask a car company to donate a car for our trip, what's the worst that could happen?" So that's what Lea and I did.  We wrote to every major car company in the United States asking for a vehicle to take us from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Coast and back again.  About 10 days after we sent out our letters, we started to get responses.  They all started with similar phrasing "what an amazing idea, but unfortunately we cannot ..." The responses stopped rolling in around March of 2016 and we didn't get discouraged, but rather figured it was a long shot anyhow.  We continued to plan the trip regardless of the vehicle.  Then in late May, Toyota reached out and offered us a Rav4 Hybrid for the adventure.  There was immense skepticism until they actually gave us the vehicle in mid-June.

So now I have this amazing vehicle, amazing trip, no commitments for the summer, and the best companion for the trip.  I can't think of a better way to spend the summer of 2016 than with Lea cruising across the country seeing all the country has to offer, and I look forward to documenting as much as I can through this blog when the internet is available.