My cross-country road trip: one year later

A year ago today, I left New Mexico, the only place I had ever called home, so that my dad and I could drive 1,800 miles to Florida for my job at Walt Disney World.

I was, honestly, devestated that I was leaving. I cried for hours and hours before I left, and I kept telling myself that I should have stayed home.

While my reflections about the College Program as a whole will have to wait until the one year anniversary of my program starting (January 28th, look out y'all), I wanted to write this blog post about the cool things that I experienced on my drive through the south.

On day 1, my dad and I drove through Texas and into Louisiana, where we stopped in Shreveport for the night. I'm a huge True Blood fan (If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor, and watch it), so as we were driving into Shreveport, I was a big ball of "Eric Northman..... Fangtasia..... Where can I find him?!"

When we stopped that night, my dad and I went to dinner at a Buffalo Wild Wings on the Boardwalk, which was beautiful, albiet a bit cold. During that dinner, my dad got a little drunk, which lifted my spirits a lot.

Day 2, we drove through central Louisiana so we could get fairly close to New Orleans. I still have dreams about how beautiful Louisiana was; it was green and there were trees everywhere. If you haven't been, I suggest you go, because it's, by far, the prettiest place I've been, besides Puerto Penasco. And, fun fact, you can get a steak and egg breakfast sandwich at McDonalds.

It took forever, but we finally crossed the Mississippi, and made our way into Mississippi. We only drove through the state for about an hour, but I spent that hour eating sunflower seeds, and singing Johnny Cash's "Jackson" to myself.

After Mississippi came Alabama, which took much longer to get through, but mainly because my dad and I went into downtown Mobile to find an Alabama sign that I could take a picture in front of. When we couldn't find anything, we just took a picture of the state line sign. 

FINALLY, we got into Florida, and, lemme tell you, the Florida panhandle is no joke to drive through. It looks like you're in the same place, and it drags on for hours and hours. My favorite memory of that drive was when my dad and I sang Boston's "Peace of Mind" together (Which is a big thing, because my dad doesn't sing, and thinks that Boston is a little overrated). We made it into Orlando at about 7:45 eastern time, exhausted, and tired of being in the car, and REALLY tired of paying tolls. It took us a total of 26 hours to cross through 6 states, but we did it. 

And the best part? I didn't have to drive at all :)

Some really cool things about the south are that it's crazy green, and there are trees everywhere. They have weird menu items at restaurants (Like the steak and egg mcmuffin), and Southern Mississippi had the nicest gas station I'd ever seen. But the radio stations really sold it for me. Stereotypical or not, the Southern US really knows their classic rock.

Overall, my road trip with my dad was one of the greatest experiences of my life, and, under different circumstances, I would love to redo it. Even if it's just so I get to listen to A+ radio stations.