Road Trip Blog: Thoughts, Conclusions, and Reflections

This is my post-road trip blog post. If you want to read my full road trip blog, click here.

I want to start this post by stating how grateful I am for all the support I have received and how much it has meant to me over the past few months.

When I was struggling in Seattle and contemplating a return to Atlanta, I sought guidance from a variety of people I am close with. Nearly every single person I contacted was more than happy to help and support me. Additionally, I was receiving unexpected messages from people I was not as close with offering guidance and help. Every little contact of communication I had was crucial in me figuring out who I am and realizing that returning to Atlanta is what I wanted to do.

Ever since I publicized that I was returning to Atlanta, my support has grown even greater. Within a matter of days, I had multiple friends offer their homes to house me upon my arrival, and others who had provided connections to help my search for employment. Just as importantly, the number of people in Atlanta who have reached out to me and telling me how they are happy to have me back in the city has been more than I could have ever imagined.

While on my road trip itself, my support continued to reach new levels. I had received support from a variety of sources—extended family, close college friends, former professors, high school friends I hadn’t heard from in years.

It was great to know that my blog itself has had a positive impact on others. I’ve had several people message me that they’ve enjoyed reading about my experiences and thoughts. I had one person tell me he was hoping to refer to my blog in his upcoming thesis paper. Yet another person said that my blog has been helpful for her upcoming cross country road trip.

The simplest of interactions I had have meant just as much. Whether it was a facebook message wishing me luck, a phone call to keep me company on the road, a text to check in and say hi, a snapchat that had nothing to do with anything, or simply taking the time to read this, it has meant so much to me to know I have some people who care.

Thank you for your love and support. My support system is far greater than I could have ever imagined. I could not have done this without you.

-JTF

Some numbers:

-My trip took me 15 days, over 52 hours of driving, through 4 time zones, and 3,596 miles.

-I traveled through 14 states* and 5 states I had never been to before, bringing my states total to 35/50. I also visited 6 capital cities** and touched 4 well-known rivers***

-I visited three national parks (Arches, Canyonlands, Hot Springs)

- I traveled on 24 different interstate highways****

- I took well over 2000 pictures on the trip.

- My max driving speed was 100 mph.

- I’m not sure how much money I spent and I’m not willing to find out.

- I posted 6 blog posts, including this one. Several more if you include the times I wrote but did not publicize due to lack of internet connection.

*(WA, OR, ID, UT, CO, AZ, NM, TX, OK, AR, TN, MS, AL, GA)

**(Boise, Salt Lake City, Santa Fe, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, and Atlanta)

***(Snake, Colorado, Rio Grande, Mississippi)

**** In chronological order: 5 90 82 84, 80 215 15 70 25 40 235 35 240 (OKC) 430 630 30 240 (MEM) 55 22 65 59 20 75 85. For those unaware, odd interstates always travel north-south, even interstates east-west. the higher the (odd) number the further east you are, the higher the number (even) the further north you are), and three-digit interstates are interstates that circumnavigate the last two-digits of the number, usually around a city (i.e. 285 is the perimeter around Atlanta and I-85).

i) Here are some fun observations about gas:

An 86 Regular? Weird.

- I’m very fortunate I traveled this month instead of three months prior. Gas prices have dropped over a dollaer per gallon since then, saving me at least a couple hundred dollars throughout the trip.

-lowest prices I filled up on by state: WA: ~$2.80, ID: ~$3.20, -UT: ~$3.10, -NM: ~$2.50, -TX: ~$2.60, -OK: ~$2.50, AR: ~$2.60, TN: ~$2.60, MS: ~$2.60, ~$AL 2.70, GA: ~$2.80.

-A great site that displays current gas costs by county is here.

-The lowest gas that I filled up on the trip (which was also the lowest I’ve ever filled up as a driver in my life!) was in Oklahoma at $2.45, although I did spot a $2.39 on the road.

-Shell is by far the worst gas station in terms of price, throughout the country. 10 cents more expensive than its neighbors without fail.

-You know how the numbers at gas stations are 87, 89, and 93, with 87 being regular gas? I learned that in gas stations in some of the southwestern states, those numbers are lower by one or two, with regular being at 85 or 86. 

My only "winner."

ii) Scratch Ticket Adventures: Speaking of gas, Every time I stopped for gas in a new state, I wanted to buy a $1 scratch ticket.

-Despite me traveling through (and filling up gas in) 14 different states, I was only abIe to buy 10 scratch tickets.

-I was unable to buy one in Arizona because I was on an Indian Reservation, which does not allow gambling. Similarly, I was also unable to buy tickets in Utah, Mississippi, and Alabama because religious obligations restrict scratch ticket lotteries.

- Of the 10 tickets I did buy, I won only once, in Colorado. Even then, I only got my money back, giving me a win-loss record of 1-9 net loss of $9.

-The one downside of me actually winning in Colorado was that I didn’t get to keep the scratch ticket. You have to turn it in to get your winnings.

-The average actual rate of “winning” scratch tickets, which include getting your money back, is usually in between 1:4 and 1:5.

  

iii) State route signs analysis: One thing I noticed while driving through different states is that each individual state has its own logo for state highway routes. Youcan see an entire picture list of them here.

-a lot of states have route signs with the number inside/near a shape of the state. BORRRRRRING.

-two states: Alabama and Idaho, pull off this feat particularly poorly. Alabama stretches its width so much to include the number it looks more like New Mexico, where Idaho’s is outside of the state, making it look like it could be the sign for Montana.

- One state’s signs that are disappointingly confusing were Utah’s. How such a beautiful state could produce this as a state sign is an embarrassment. What is that? A fat arch? A beehive? An igloo? To me, it looks like a three year old’s pants and shoes. Regardless, it’s an utter disgrace for such a beautiful state.

-Two states that worked creativity in nicely were New Mexico and Washington. New Mexico does a great job incorporating its Zia sun symbol into its state route, and Washington does a good job putting the state route inside a profile of George Washington.

-My favorite state route sign of all time, although admittedly biased, will have to be Massachusetts’. Nothing better than Routes 28 and 62 crossing in the good ol’ NR.

Myself and the Idaho plate in 2012.

iv) State License Plate Analysis: Driving cross country also exposed me to many state license plate designs. Here’s my analysis on these. You can see an entire picture list of them here.

-My favorite along the trip was most likely Oklahoma’s. It just looked really different and creative, at least relative to the other states’ I saw.

-Idaho’s design was ok. But it jumps up to one of my favorites simply because of its wonderful slogan at the bottom.

- Once again, disappointed in Utah. While it has the famous Delicate Arch, they could’ve done a much better job. I did like its slogan “Life Elevated.”

-Random side note, I saw a Hawaii license plate in Utah. Did it drive from Hawaii? That’d be insane! It was my second Hawaii plate seen ever.

-My all-time favorite license plate design has to be South Carolina’s. A great design. Although now that I look at it: the slogan is pretty lame.

-By far the ugliest plate design has to be New York’s. I don’t like New York as a city or state, but even if I did, these things are just hideous. Puke Yellow. Yuck. Well, the smell of the city makes me want to puke. So at least there's some correlation there.

The main takeaways and reflection:

I was so lucky that I had the opportunity to do something awesome and go on this road trip. A cross country road trip has been on my bucket list for quite some time, and the circumstances happened to work themselves out such that I was able to do so. It was truly an eye-opening experience.

Every once in a while, and maybe you do this too, I ask myself “I wonder where I will be in x days?” For example, the day before I began my trip a few weeks ago, when the Patriots were playing the Broncos, I asked myself “where will I be in one week? Two weeks? One month? It’s pretty incredible that a week later I was experiencing a big ass crater at Canyonlands National Park. And that two weeks later, I’d be in Hot Springs, Arkansas, watching another Patriots game. Similarly, when I graduated from school six months ago, I would’ve never guessed that six months later I’d be with my family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, of all places, in the middle of a cross country road trip. I have no clue where I’ll be in one month, two months, half a year, or one year, but it’s interesting to think about how these things work out.

Exactly one week later, I was here.

I was also very lucky in regards to my travel conditions. The weather was good, for the most part. It was warm during the week I was camping outside. Although it got colder during the second week, and even snowed some, my ability to travel was barely affected. Had I left even a week later, I would have had a pretty miserable time throughout the trip due to the cold and snow. I also had no major car issues, breakdowns, or accidents.

After I decided to return to Atlanta, in the weeks leading up to my road trip, I was initially pretty hesitant on how to move back to Atlanta. Should I sell my car and fly back? Should I drive back along the shortest route possible, minimizing travel time and monetary costs? Or should I take a more scenic route? Should I simply stay in cheap motels, or flirt with the idea of camping, despite the fact it was late fall? I ended up, of course, taking the longer scenic route, camping along the way, and I was greatly rewarded with an amazing trip.

When in doubt, with the assumption you aren’t hurting anyone else, go with the decision that is more adventurous, the one that will make a better story. Sure, I could have taken the shortest route possible, staying in motels. But that wouldn’t have been fun or memorable at all! More importantly, I wouldn’t have learned nearly as much, nor had much to tell in my stories or blog posts. Whenever you have the opportunity to do something interesting or adventurous, you have to go for it; you have to give it a try. Make your own opportunities!

As I’ve been saying since high school, “you’re never going to remember the time you didn’t do something.” Even though doing adventurous things runs an inherent risk, it’s better to give something a chance and have it not work out than not giving it chance and always wondering “what if?” It’s usually the unexpected bumps in the road that bring out the best stories and memories, anyways.

I’m a pretty big believer in living life with no regrets—whether it’s with your career, relationships, everyday decision making, etc. If you regret something, then you’re doing it wrong. It is important, however, to recognize the difference between regretting something and having done something differently based off of what you currently know.

Take for example, my move to Seattle. If I had the opportunity, knowing what I know now, to hypothetically go back in time and go about that whole process differently, would I? Of course! I wasn’t happy there. I probably wouldn’t have taken that job, wouldn’t have moved out there in the first place, and certainly would have pursued other options.

But do I regret moving out there? Absolutely not. It was, knowing what I knew then, the best possible decision I could have made at that time. Sure, things didn’t work out. I should have thought some things through a little more. But at that time, given what I knew, there’s no way I could’ve foresaw how things would work out.

We should all live the same way. As long as you’re making what in your mind is the best decision at the time of the decision, there’s nothing to be ashamed about.

One of my biggest concerns going into the trip was whether or not I could handle being alone for such a long period of time. Think about it. When was the last time you had spent even a week by yourself with nobody else around that really knew or cared about you?

Being alone for so long was a refreshing revelation. The freedom of not having anyone or anything to worry about is a refreshing feeling, especially when you’re surrounded by the best nature has to offer. If you ever have the opportunity to go solo for a significant period of time, especially in a gorgeous place, I highly recommend it. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to really slow your life down, take in those moments, stretch your boundaries, and reflect upon yourself in ways you have never had before.

My last bit, and perhaps the most important, is my thoughts about social interaction and relationships. Being relatively alone—both on my road trip and while I was in Seattle—made me realize a serious flaw in society today: convenience aside, we are terrible at connecting and interacting people.

It seems that people are so concerned about being polite, not getting in the way of others, and avoiding awkward situations that it has made us afraid of connecting with others.

The best descriptor of this is when I’d see a group walking around a scenic viewpoint in a national park* taking pictures of one another, sometimes taking selfies and other times switch off who gets to be in the photo. Very rarely did I see a group of people ask someone else if they could take a picture for them. How many times have you gone somewhere with a few other people, and would have loved to have a group picture of everyone, but no one was willing to ask/bother a stranger to doing so?

*although I will admit, people in National Parks are generally way more friendly than in your average community.

The thing is, if you do ask others, which I was forced to do at times on my trip having gone solo, the vast majority of the time they are happy to help. Similarly, the times in which I’d ask a group of people if they would like a picture as a group, they’d always eagerly say yes, as if they were waiting for someone to ask them that very question.

It’s that awkward initial interaction that is the most difficult part for everyone involved. We don’t want to bother other people, and they don’t want to bother us, mainly due to the fear of the ensuing awkwardness that may follow.

This fear of an awkward interaction is true not only with strangers, but between acquaintances as well. For example, on a college campus, we’ve all been through that feeling when you walk by that person on the paths that you kind of know, and you know (s)he kind of knows you, and you both know you kind of know each other, and then you make awkward eye contact for a split second, only for the both of you to quickly glance away to avoid interaction. And then it becomes a never ending cycle, in which the same progression happens with this same person every time you cross paths, unless you decided to completely avoid this situation and by pretending to be preoccupied looking at your smartphone when you see the other person coming from yards away. I’ve done it time and time again, possibly with some of the people reading this right now!

Why don’t we just say hi, wave, or simply acknowledge one another? Are we that uncomfortable in those few seconds of a potential awkward encounter? Perhaps we are scared of being rejected, the slim chance that that person has forgotten who we are (even though we know (s)he knows who we are) and we’ll look like a fool? The potential of connecting with others is well worth overcoming those little fears. It’s unfortunate that societal norms have encouraged us to continue avoiding these connections.

Similarly, and I was talking to someone on the phone about this on my trip, we as a society are terrible at connecting with people we do know and have relationships with. It seems that, other than with the closest of our friends, we don’t interact with our friends unless there is an excuse/reason to do so.

One such example, is someone’s birthday, and I’m as guilty as anyone at this. I won’t hesitate to post on a friend’s birthday (assuming I actually like this friend), but will rarely post on a friend’s wall just cause.

I believe 79 people posted on my facebook wall for my birthday, along with a handful of facebook messages, snapchats, and texts. I’m not saying I didn’t appreciate the wishes, nor that you shouldn’t wish me a happy birthday next year, but in the grand scheme of things, practically speaking, wouldn’t it have meant more to me if someone had posted on my facebook wall on a random day of the year that wasn’t my birthday, when I wasn’t overwhelmed with so many other birthday posts?

Is it so wrong to check in with someone you haven’t seen for a while just for the sake of checking in? If someone contacted me for no other reason than to just check in I’d be thrilled. Why don’t we do this more often? Once again, is it because we don’t want to bother them? Or for them to think “why are you talking to me again?” about us? It’s so easy to connect with people these days. It’s a shame we’re so bad at doing so.

Rant aside, I’m glad to be back home in Atlanta. After the first few days, everyone has been so welcoming. But I have to realize that I’m back in the real world (and not in college, unfortunately), living on a friend’s living room floor, and I need to get my shit together, and soon.

Thanks for your continued support; I’m glad you came along for the ride. See you next time.

-JTF