Driving Across The America
This isn’t a personal blog, I know that’s not what you signed up for but I did want to take this week to talk about my recent drive across America. Since this is a company founded on the importance of Made in America, my first cross country drive should be in the conversation somehow.
One of my best friends lives in LA, he's an actor, and with the strike showing no signs of slowing, he unfortunately had to make the choice to move home to CT for a bit. I saw an opportunity to help a friend, and accomplish the #1 item on my bucket list: a cross country drive.
I was flying out of Newark, NJ Tuesday morning. It was early enough I spent the night in Newark, at what I thought was a reasonably priced hotel, but turned out to be an incredibly shady AirBnB. Tuesday I landed at LAX by noon, Alec picked me up and we were off! Our first destination was Flagstaff, AZ. Now driving through LA was pretty surreal, I grew up a massive West Coast Rap fan. (I bet that's not how you saw that sentence ending). N.W.A, Tupac, Nate Dogg, all my early influences. LA culture and the California lifestyle were always on my mind. I even applied to school in Pamona, spoiler alert I didnt get in. But the landscape in California was everybit I had seen in the movies and music videos. I could see why someone like my friend would live out here.
In New England the terrain is rolling hills, in California it was incredibly flat and then a mountain that erupted from the earth's bedrock a millennia ago. But I was so unprepared for our second day. The Grand Canyon. Day 2 we got up at 8am, and hit the road, one tiny back route to the GC. When we pulled up to the parking lot our first dumb thought was, “well where is it?”. I cannot explain it now and I couldn’t explain it then, but I was nervous walking around at first. It was like I was about to meet the President, or give a speech. I just knew what was about to happen would be life altering. And it was. Alec and I were walking around in jeans and sweats, driving clothes. 80% of the people there were in hiking gear, and also 40% of the people were foreign. Seeing the Grand Canyon was just….beyond belief. There was this quiet in the group of people standing there. It was a respectful quiet, no one was speaking louder than a whisper. Back in the 1940’s “awesome” was a word to express the enormity of scale, the power of something, this sight was truly awesome.
At 11am we got on the road and it was 10 hours to Trinidad, Colorado. This drive was quite long but oh so beautiful. Arizona and New Mexico were my favorite parts of the trip. New Mexico had a very prevalent Native American population. We stopped for lunch and my friend was the only white person in sight in the town. Every gas station sold moccasins and other clothing that felt very particular to this region of the country. Leaving the GC and then driving through the desert reminds you of how big the country truly is. Life was just slower out here. The exits on the road were further. There weren’t many lights on the highway. You just lived as you needed too. People weren’t on top of each other like New England, exits every mile and it’s just town after town after town. Out here, when you got to a town it was an event and we were able to appreciate every person we saw. When we arrived at the hotel, the front desk receptionist was a 68 year old man with one of those stoner panchos, a gun on his waist, and told us there were 60 dispensaries in this town, more than coffee shops. Cool, bro.
Day 3 we got on the road, another 10 hours, and 8 of them were driving in Kansas. Woof. The desert was cool because it was so foreign. Kansas was a two lane route further than the eye could see. 2 hours of nothing and then maybe a small collection of buildings you realize is a town, then another 2-3 hours of nothing and another small collection. All to get to Missouri. We stayed at a casino that night, which was not as fun as it sounds.
Up until this point we had taken back roads and small routes. Day 4 we jumped on the highway. This coincided with the halfway point, and also the landscape changing to a more familiar one. We drove through Illinoi, Indiana and ended up in Ohio. I was saying to Alec that night, remember when we drove through the desert? It had been a few days but felt like a lifetime. No more small towns, no more wondering if there was ever going to be a bathroom, it was a very familiar and populated country now.
The final day we left Ohio, drove through Pennsylvania and ended the journey in New Jersey. It was then 2 hours back to CT.
This trip was everything I expected it to be as a whole, but the beginning of it was so much more. We both needed to get back home and get to work so it wasn’t a trip of adventuring and luxury, I knew that going in. But those first few days, seeing the sunset in the desert, pulling over in the middle of an empty road to look at the stars, just taking our time to take in the country we both occupy from either end…it helped. Helped me not get lost in the chaos of running a small business, helped me feel a purpose in fighting for made in america, helped me understand what is out there, and truly helped me gain an appreciation for how vast and complex the story of America is every single day.
Forrest Gump
"I just felt like funning" (click)
