Trip of the LONG variety

Well, here we are. Yes, yes, a few months later. My boyfriend and I have successfully traveled across the county in our little while Taurus and made it to the ocean blue. It took us four days to drive through America and you know what? Our trip was amazing. When I'd mention to someone that I was planning to drive, in a little packed car, with the only room being in the front seats (seats moved up as far as physically possible to sustain for several hours at a time), and with only my boyfriend for company... often those people would exhale loudly and tell me, "good luck," like I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into. They were all mistaken. We made it to California with very little uncomfortable silences, arguments about music choices, or snippy comments asking, "are we there yet?" It surprised even us.

We drove though flat, boring, planes where every time we saw a stray cow, alone on a massive field, we wondered if it was wild because there were no homes or other signs of life nearby. We stayed in Utah, where the night sky was almost just as truly awesome (in the real sense of the word) as the mountains we saw in the morning.

Next we stopped at the Grand Canyon and we hung our feet over the edge of the most amazing site in the entire US. Pardon my cliche moment, but it was intense, massive, awe inspiring, ect ect ect, to say the least.

Just when you think there's nothing left to see, we saw some human handiwork in the Hoover Dam! We made a small stop in Las Vegas, where it started to sprinkle in 95 degree heat. We weren't sure if it was rain, or the town just spitting on us. We left pretty quick. Our entire journey was punctuated with stories and laughter and tons of fantastic inside jokes stored away for later. We were so glad, each new morning, each new mile, to look out our car windows and see something new. Michigan is our home. We both love it and the people there, who love us... but the US is beautiful and there's more to the US than Michigan. Now we know. Now we've seen. (At least a portion.)

The best view? 2,584 miles, 4 days, $280 in gas, later? It's the last few miles in the car together, with the sun setting in front of our windshield. We tipped over the top of another highway hill to see the Pacific ocean sparkling in the last light of the day. We made it.