12,000 Miles

12,000 miles

I traveled for 2 months. Spent significant time in 25 states, and drove through almost all of the lower 48. Went 50 days without a shower, a bed, or even the ability to lay down flat at night. Added 12,000 miles onto a 14 year old car that was on the verge of a breakdown before I even departed. I also did this completely alone.

And when I returned the first question my brother asked me was, "did you soak it all in?" 

Short answer: no. But I don't really think it's necessarily possible to soak it all in. 

Long answer:

In January of 2017 I was at my tipping point. I had been working in finance at a fortune 500 company for 3 years. My entire life was: structured and was virtually the same everyday, rushed (bouncing from meeting to meeting, cursing through rush hour traffic, scrambling to make trains/conferences/deadlines etc.), filled with an intolerable amount of stress, and frankly, boring. 

I decided to change it, and make 2017 a year for me. I feel like we owe that to ourselves at least every now and then. We spend SO much time working for others that we forget to work on ourselves. 

So I quit work. Lost health insurance, a steady paycheck, a 401k, and a job at a top tier organization; Jumped in my rickety old car by myself and hit the road without much of a plan or any real preparation. Foolish? Maybe. Exciting? Definitely.

The little bit of a plan that I had:

1. See as much of the country as possible while spending as little as possible. This included: sleeping in my car, often times curled in the fetal position on the back seat, on city blocks, residential roads, parking lots, truck stops, sides of highways parking garages, etc. while camping the rest of the time.
2. Photograph everything.

Almost immediately life slowed down. My days felt like they lasted eternities. No more checking my phone every minute for email, or 14 hour days in front of an Excel spreadsheet. Instead, I climbed the beautiful mountain ranges of the Appalachians, Shenandoah, Ozarks, Rockies, and Tetons. Traversed the deserts of New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Colorado. I walked amongst the giants of the Redwoods. Explored the magnificent Pacific beaches. Swung on rope swings, and cliff jumped and sand boarded dunes. I hiked down the canyon rims of Bryce and the Grand Canyon, and I climbed to the tops of others like Zion. I swam in natural swimming holes, I surfed in the Pacific Ocean, I bathed in hot springs. Descended into caves, and soared high up on a prop plane. I chased waterfalls in Oregon, visited cities that felt foreign and landscapes that felt like home. Drove scenic byways, ate local food. Saw amazing wildlife: bison, bald eagles, whales, seals, prairie dogs, elk, turtles, snakes, scorpions, beetles, and others that I don't have the knowledge to identify. Experienced all four seasons in a two month span. Slept in places that I could see the Milky Way with my naked eye, and what an incredibly humbling feeling that is. 

For the first time I truly immersed myself into each and every moment. I spent hours sitting atop Horseshoe Bend. A rain storm and heavy winds swept in while I was there and other tourists scampered out to avoid it. I sat and rode the short storm out and when it passed over (fairly quickly) I had the place to myself for a bit. I stared at Yosemite Valley for what felt like forever, ate lunch there and watched the sunset. I parked myself on Baker's Beach in San Fransisco with a perfect line of sight of the Golden Gate Bridge for what could've been two full days. Every place that I went, I tried my absolute best to soak in every little detail, every single feeling evoked. And what a radical difference it made on me. 

I also photographed everything, but foolishly saved everything to an external hard drive and only an external hard drive. When I returned home I plugged it in to back up the photos and that's when my heart stopped. The hard drive had crashed. Almost every picture I took was gone, just like that. 300 out of the 8-10 thousand pictures managed to survive because they were still on my SD card in my camera. As I write this the HD is undergoing expensive surgery in an effort to recover the rest of them. 

The Lesson

I am abundantly happy that I hit the brakes on my life and did something for myself. I saw more beauty in two months than most people will be get to see in their lifetimes. I'm also glad I spent as much time as I could at each place that I went to so that my brain could process as much as possible. Because the videos and images that my brain took will live forever in me regardless of the outcome of my hard drive. 

In this day and age we far too often go to a place because we saw it on Instagram. We climb up the mountain just to take a picture. And we climb it as fast as we can, forgetting what the ascensions are all about. Then we rush down to get enough phone service to post it. And just like that, we're then scurrying to the next "photoshoot" - as that's what the outdoors represent to some people that I know. 

What I've learned is that time doesn't fly when you're having fun or when you're stuck at work. It flies when you're not consciously present, soaking in what your eyes see and your heart feels. It flies when you're rushing, either to work or up a mountain. The connections of the internet to others often lead us to a disconnection with ourselves and our environments. Reconnect with them. Do something for yourself. Slow down. Soak it in, or as much of it as you can at least. And for goodness' sake back up your data.