Wanderlust

"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Wanderlust - A strong desire to travel

Finally my time in Oxford has a definitive end date. May 31, 2010, my lease in the fine city of Oxford, Mississippi will be up and I'll be moving on, and lately I've been thinking about what I'll be doing when that day rolls around. Right now my plan is to try to go to seminary or go on Young Life staff, but neither of those would start until August/September of 2010. So that leaves roughly two months to do pretty much whatever. As it stands I'll probably just move back home, but the more I think about it, the more I realize I want to travel.

The more I think about it, the more I realize there are just places I want to see and things I want to do. I have a decent amount of money saved up and I can really make this happen. I've been thinking and praying about it a decent amount and I mean...when am I going to get another chance to do that? I mean I may get a week here or there, but to really, actually get out and see the country on my own time with no other responsibilities other than being home by September? That won't happen again in my entire life. So why not?

So here's what I want to do:
-(Optional) Buy an International Harvester Scout. Preferably a Scout II, but any one of them would be fine.
-Load up the vehicle, hopefully said Scout II, and hit I-20 and drive until I got to the Grand Canyon. I have no idea how long this would take, because I'd like to stop and visit friends along the way, but eventually make it to the Grand Canyon. I've never seen Arizona and want to. That drive would also cover Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico. Even though I've already seen all of those states, it would be good to go back. (1,657 miles - 1 day, 5 hours)
-Post-Grand Canyon, I want to make the drive over to San Diego. I want to see that city for some reason, and if I did it in the summer I could catch a baseball game. That actually would be something I'd try to plan my travel times around. After San Diego, I want to drive up the PCH as far as I can. (526 miles - 10 hours, 28 minutes)
-Post-San Diego/PCH/various California hot spots, I want to keep driving north to Portland. The beginning of my trip would involve an e-mail to Donald Miller telling him what I was planning on doing and asking him if he wanted to hang out when I get there. I'm sure he'd be down for it because he wrote a book about doing the same thing. Also, this trip is partly inspired by Through Painted Deserts. (1,082 miles - 16 hours, 32 minutes)
-Post-Portland, I'd drive on up to the Seattle area and visit friends. (176 miles - 2 hours, 49 minutes)
-Post-Seattle, I want to see Mount Rushmore. This drive would cover Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota. (1,184 miles - 17 hours, 16 minutes)
-Post-Rushmore, who knows? Looking at the map, the possibilities are endless. The only problem is that I'm back in a part of the country I'm familiar with. So maybe head south to Colorado? Denver is nice that time of year, plus the Rockies are there. Why not? (390 miles - 6 hours, 26 minutes)
-Post-Denver, let's go to Kansas City. The Royals suck, but it's still baseball. (601 miles - 8 hours, 41 minutes)
-Post-KC, I'd head to St. Louis and check out a Cardinals game. (249 miles - 3 hours, 50 minutes)
-At this point, I'm back in familiar territory. I'd probably just take I-55 south until I got home. (504 miles - 7 hours, 32 minutes)

So that would be a rough itinerary of my dream trip. It would be roughly 17 states (including passing through Arkansas and Tennessee) and cover over 6,000 miles. Roughly 105 hours of driving (my math could be way off). And who knows? Maybe I'd head farther east too.

I don't know. I don't know if any of this ever materializes, but this is something I've been thinking of a TON. This is obviously a work in progress and a lot depends on what happens in these next several months and what I wind up doing in the fall. Obviously, with me, things can change. But for whatever reason this is what I'm thinking about a lot lately.

This is insane. Hopefully it happens.
<3 chanchan