Tag Archives: road trip

Easing the Restlessness

By Matt Keibler

“Do you want to go to the Grand Canyon to see the sunrise?”

Now, I am one for adventure. Hiking Mt. Baldy, snorkeling on the Atlantic shelf, walking alone through a Moroccan market, traversing the hills of Scotland through sleet storms – I have no trouble with getting outside. The real issue is getting friends to go with me. Happiness is only real when shared, no?

So, when I asked my dear friend Rachel to spend her one day off on one of the last weeks of Summer 2015 to drive seven hours across the Arizona desert in the middle of the night for a few dawn hours on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, I was nervous that she would say no. After all, this was the last thing on my summer bucket list before senior year. Who knows where we would both be next year? I warned her. It would be an exhausting task. We would need coffee and Clif bars and maybe some 90s throwbacks to get us through the night. And I knew that she was the only one crazy enough to say yes to this.

And she did.

“Great. Go take a nap. We leave at 9:30pm. Sun rises at 6:37am.”

She did not realize the immediacy of my question and yet, she took it in stride. Within a few hours, we were packed, caffeinated, and midway to Barstow, where we would leave the traditional route to Las Vegas, instead opting for the 40 freeway and another 4 hours of desert. Musically, we had moved through The Great Boy Bands of the 90s, and into 90s alternative rock. Blink-182 was a better vibe for a midnight drive through the California desert anyways.

Now, I am a boy from Florida, and I thought I knew heat. Summer nights are a balmy 80 degrees Fahrenheit, with a light breeze, if you’re lucky. My best memories are sitting on the beach after midnight in the late summer, watching the lightning from a far off storm illuminate the ocean. The flash of blue mirrors itself on the water, and for a split second, you can see the beach around you. Sometimes you could see a boat far, far in the distance. Most of the time, you saw the horizon of blueish black meet the stars. But only for a second. In that consuming darkness, you are left with nothing to do but sit down and bask in its awe.

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Being Oregonian – My Classic Family Road Trip

By Diya Dwarankanath

Even the global citizen has a special place they associate with home. If you disagree, I recommend reading the short story, A Cosmopolitan in a Café, by the American author, O’Henry.  In this piece of literature, a man, endearingly named by the narrator as a “cosmopolitan”, claims to have no piddling feelings for any one place; he says “It’ll be a better world when we quit being fools about some mildewed town or ten acres of swampland just because we happened to be born there.” But just when you, the reader, perhaps start to feel guilty for being sentimental for your own hometown, the cosmopolitan gets in a brawl over a negative remark said about his own birthplace in Maine. O’Henry’s fictional account inspired me to write about a recent family road trip.

Your hometown, home state, or home country means something to you. Often the meaning is small, but distinct – like the fresh smell of the soil when it rains, unique to my home state, Oregon. Actually, I’ve lived in two countries, India and the United States, and three states in America—Oregon, California, and Massachusetts. Whenever I move, people always ask me, “Where do you come from?” and “What’s it like back home?” Answering these questions make me more aware of my roots.

And more aware of what I am missing.

When my family moved to Oregon, one of the first things I remember learning about American life is that families went on road trips. Oregonian families specifically went on road trips to Crater Lake, one of the most famous attractions in Oregon. My friends told me about the road trips they took there, but that it was a multi-day commitment. As a child, I insisted that my family should go, but the timing never worked out.

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