The Cast
I've known Jeremy since my senior year of high school. He's the only person I went to school with that I still regularly keep in touch with, though we didn't become friends until after graduation. We started hanging out during Beach Week and have done our best to remain friends since. I usually tried to get in touch with him when I was home from college so we could keep in touch. Otherwise, we rarely talked. We have very different beliefs, but he's always been a good friend, even when I wasn't.
Jeremy is the one that introduced me to the wonderful vehicles that are Jeeps, particularly the Jeep CJ-7 and Wrangler. We've been off-roading at Assateague, MD, cruised Ocean City, MD, and gotten wind and sun burns together on countless highways. He recently graduated from UMBC with a degree in Visual Arts (his particular interest is photography). Indirectly, he's probably the biggest influence on my decision to take Photography in college (which is one of my new favorite passtimes).
After living in Maryland for most of his life, Jeremy's moving to San Diego, CA for a change of scenary. Once his girlfriend graduates from college, his plan for is to marry her and enter the Peace Corp. He's 23, a Star Wars and Star Trek fan, and very independent.
Lisi is Jeremy's girlfriend. They've been dating for over a year now. He met her through her brother, whom Jeremy worked with. She's 18 and has completed on year of community college. She's a vegetarian, believes love is the answer to the world's problems, and Jeremy is her first steady boyfriend.
David is an international student from Sweden. He came to the US to swim competitively and study photography at UMBC. Women seem to flock to him. Like Jeremy and Lisi, he's critical of the US government, more for its capitalism than democracy. He believes in ghosts, guardian angels, a higher power, and thinks Jesus Christ once walked the face of the Earth and did wonderful things.
The Route
- I-70 West from Frederick, MD to Hancock, MD
- I-68 West from Hancock, MD to Fairmont, WV
- I-79 South from Fairmont, WV to Charleston, WV
- I-64 West from Charleston, WV to St. Louis, MO
- I-70 West from St. Louis, MO to Campus, KS
- Rt. 40 West from Campus, KS to Aroya, CO
- Rt. 94 West from Aroya, CO to Colorado Springs, CO
- I-25 South from Colorado Springs, CO to Albuquerque, NM
- I-40 West from Albuquerque, NM to Flagstaff, AZ
- I-17 South from Flagstaff, AZ to Phoenix, AZ
- I-10 East from Phoenix, AZ to Tucson, AZ
- I-10 West from Tucson, AZ to Casa Grande, AZ
- I-8 West from Casa Grande, AZ to San Diego, CA
The Pictures
See my gallery for pictures from our trip and my subsequent visit to San Diego with Rebekah.
June 2, 2003
Greetings from Kansas City, MO, a city famous for its steak, barbeque, and fountains.
Between games of GHOST and "The Category Game", David decided he wanted to make one of the tractor trailer trucks that were flying by us honk its horn (something I did throughout my childhood and was happy to help David do for the first time). So, David, Lici, and I rolled down our windows and stuck our arms out the window until we got a trucker's attention and a wonderful horn honking. When I was 5 years old doing that, I never figured I'd still be doing it at 23.
June 3, 2003
We got up at around 8am this morning. I was surprised we slept so late, but when I got out of the tent I saw that an overcast sky blocked the morning sun. Throughout the night, wind whipped across the hill our tents sat upon waking me. The hard ground made it uncomfortable to move around much or to sleep on my side. We packed up our site and went down the road to the campground grocery store/restaurant/convenience store for breakfast, saying our goodbyes to Cedar Bluff State Park.
Today was the day I was really looking forward to. I've never been to Colorado and I've dreamed of seeing the snow-capped Rockies. The eastern part of Colorado proved to be as beautifully flat as Kansas. The first mountains shot from the ground as we approached Colorado Springs, CO. There was a storm in front of the mountains, so they appeared vague and blue. Though the sun continued to shine, Huge rain drops poured down on us as we entered Colorado Springs, flooding some of the streets.
Once through the city, we drove through windy red clay hills pocadotted with evergreens and small green bushes to our campsite, Mueller State Park near Divide, CO and Pike's Peak (elev. 14110 ft). The snow-spotted mountains were the background from our walk-in camp site.
After setting up camp, we headed to the refreshing, coin-operated showers. We decided to defy camping conventions, so I drove with David down to Woodland Park for pizza. I stalled the car at least four times within the campgrounds and once while turning onto a major highway. David, sans a US driver's license (his Swedish driver's license is supposed to be international), drove us back. When we arrived, a friend and ex-associate of Jeremy's, Chad, greeted us. I'd met Chad when he lived in Maryland after high school, though I didn't know him when we went to high school together. After 10th grade, he moved to Hawaii, then back to Maryland, then to Utah, and he's currently in Colorado Springs, as he was called up by the Army Reserves for active duty.
We ate and mingled in front of our camp fire before heading to sleep.
June 4, 2003
Lisi got up early this morning and walked a trail on the search for bears. Though she didn't see any bears, she didn't come up empty handed. She found bear prints and heard some wild turkeys. When we eventually woke around 8am, we packed camp and headed out. As we left Colorado Springs, we spotted Cheyenne Mountain. As we drove south on I-25, we passed several 14,000ft. mountains, along with rocky hills and plateaus in Colorado. Breakfast for me was a pack of chocolate doughnuts in Colorado City, CO.
After a mexican lunch in Raton, NM, we continued south toward Albuquerque. Across the open, flat plains of New Mexico, we saw rain storms to the east and west. Grey-blue streaks of rain fell from clouds miles away as the first drops of rain exploded on our windshield. Before long, rain intermixed with hail pelted our windshield. Marble-sized pieces of ice ricocheted off the hood, roof, and sunroof. I sat back in my seat, half expecting a ice rock to break through the windows and bounce around the car. After several minutes, the sky lightened in front of us, the hail seized, and the rain drops became few and fair between. The mountains to our west reappeared through the falling rain and the sun emerged again.
For the next several hours, mountains towered out of the fields and plateaus, sometimes reaching high enough for blotches of white to obscure their tops. As we entered New Mexico, the interstate began to wind, rise, and dip through the hills. The ground was covered by small green bushes and dry-looking grass rather than huge amounts of sand, as I'd expected. Albuquerque's mountains appeared to our south after leaving Santa Fe, NM.
I've longed to visit Albuquerque since I last was there the summer after 8th grade. The Sandía* Mountains border the city nestled in a valley to the north. Other mountains peaks rise on all sides and a lone volcano rises to the south. The houses are largely one story and stuco. They all seem to have security and sprinkler systems, their yards bordered by high brick or stuco fenses just wide enough to walk on. The city sits at about 5,000 feet above sea level, so the air is thin and hard to adjust to for an East Coaster living 20 minutes from the Chesapeake Bay. The days are hot and dry, while the nights are cool and lively.
* Sandía is Spanish for watermelon, the color of the clouds over the mountains at sunset.
June 5, 2003
I'm surprised by the number of trains I've seen today. Within our first hour of travling, I saw at least five trains all heading east on tracks paralleling the highway.
My journal entries feel off at this point. When we arrived in Tucson, AZ on June 5, 2003, I went to visit a friend from school, Mike, who lived in Tucson. Lici's mother also lives in Tucson, so Jeremy, David, and Lici were staying there for a couple of days.
I got a call saying that Jeremy's car had broken down due to transmission problems. I had a plane ticket to leave San Diego, CA on the 11th and another to leave Washington, DC on the 13th for Oslo, Norway. In other words, I needed to get to San Diego. Mike wasn't doing anything and he had a nice, new Dodge Ram 1500 with an extended cab (and a Hemi), so he was gracious enough to drive all of us (including the UHaul trailer) on to San Diego on the 10th.
The trip cross-country ranks in the top three vacations I've taken. It was fabulous to see so much of the United States, from the gentle slopes of the Appalachian Mountains to the rocky peaks of the Rockies. I only wish I could have spent more time exploring. I wanted to go to Champaign, IL, where I lived for four years as a child. I wanted to see the red woods in northern California. However, I'm just grateful for the opportunity to spend the trip with three great people. It's definitely something I'd do again.
