The Discover America Tour

I met my best friend for a hike in the woods with the dogs. While hanging out at her house I picked up a photo album and started flipping through memories. A long time ago before families, professions and mortgages we turned our tassels, grabbed our degrees and giddy with freedom headed out into the world. We had a plan, a map, and a tent. Drive cross country, discover America and then figure out what to do with the rest of our lives. We found a company looking for someone to drive a car cross country and deliver it to California. Perfect! We shopped around and found really good flights to Hawaii, even better! The car turned out to be a brand new upscale luxury automobile. Yes! The day of our departure we gleefully started hauling our stuff out to the curb. The owner, paranoid and mistrustful had locked the stereo in the trunk. After locking up the cars only storage area the jerk flew to Europe for the Summer. This meant everything had to fit in the back seat and no radio meant no traffic updates, weather reports, blues through the Delta and only our voices to serenade us through Kansas. The company jammed a trip tick in our hands and told us under no circumstances were we to veer even an inch from the prescribed route agreed upon. Our atlas turned out to be quite outdated with mention of camping spots that had long since closed down. We didn’t make that discovery for a while though. After packing, repacking and finally leaving stuff we really didn’t need (I used to be a notorious over packer) we headed out to discover America! We discovered many many things along the way. The Eureka tent was unbelievably well made, and survived flash floods in Kentucky, wipping winds in Colorado, and stayed relatively cool and was quite comfortable when perched by the ocean in Hawaii. We discovered why nobody wanted to set up their tent on a gorgeous mountain side in Colorado when the winds came and we nearly lost everything in the canyon. We found out just how many camp sites had gone under since the Atlas was published in the 70’s. We drove through a ranch in the Midwest called boot ranch and had a pack of dogs chase us while looking for one camp ground. We had an honest moment in Kansas. Yes it’s true; neither of us can carry a tune and don’t really know the words to any songs. We discovered Utah was beautiful, Kansas is boring, St.louis has the worst traffic and if we bent over really low when we played pool we could drink beer all night for free, as long as we kept playing pool. (Hey come on, we were 22) I discovered I was allergic to bees, C is the best driver on the planet, as proven by her ability to navigate unbelievable roads not made for cars or trucks and we are both incredibly frightened of being eaten by black bears. We also discovered how beautiful our country is and how warm, friendly and inviting Americans can be. We caught that plane to Hawaii. Good surf, beautiful beaches, great people. It was bliss. As the months passed our thoughts turned toward our future lives. Eventually we packed our bags and headed home again. C stayed for a holiday with her boyfriend, but we met up shortly, just in time for the snow, graduate applications and resume building. We were just two kids on the road to life. Yeah... happiness can happen with a can of spam, a sturdy tent and believing anything is possible.
Peace and love
Jai Bahgwan