Before winter break even started, two of my friends, Eric and Peter, approached me with an experience of a lifetime: road tripping from my state, Maryland, back to school. At first, I was a little hesitant, but I eventually agreed since this was an once in a lifetime experience. Throughout winter break, I did minimal planning while Eric prepared the whole trip since he was the who wanted to do the trip so that he could bring his BMW X5 to California; we were traveling in style. So the last week of winter break, Peter, Eric and I packed into his car and started our journey.Within in the first hour, we almost had our first accident, luckily we dodged the oncoming traffic.
A couple of days before the road trip I was second guessing my decision of going, but within a couple hours on the road, I knew that I made the right choice to go on these road trip. The first day of driving encompassed loud house and rap music, empty highways and speed limit signs that we really did not follow. We raced through Virginia, and stopped in Nashville, Tennessee to do a little sight seeing. We looked at Broadway Strip and the Titans Stadium. It was night time and a weekday so it was pretty empty, but I really enjoyed the cold weather and empty downtown lights.
After we stopped in Nashville for an hour or so, we got back in the X5 and continued on our way. We were on a mission to get to Oklahoma City to retrieve our other passenger, our friend Audrey, and take a shower: I started feeling a little grimy from just sitting for 8 hours of straight driving. We reached Audrey’s house around 12 and really just enjoyed Oklahoma city. Audrey showed us a couple places and then we went to dinner. It was a much needed relaxing time.
We stayed the night and woke up at around 6 or 7am; ate a little breakfast and then we were back on our way. Eric planned out the whole trip day by day and the rest of the trip would be spent looking at various national parks and getting some great pictures along the way. We decided to take pictures at a couple state signs.
Over the next few days, we climbed up arches at Arches National park, enjoyed sunrises at Bryce Canyon, walked on the side of Angles Landing at Zion, and spent a nice mellow rainy day at the Grand Canyon.
We had done so much hiking and climbing, but we were still not done. We still had to travel through Las Vegas. I know what you are thinking, we probably went crazy, but keep in mind, you can only do so much when you are under 21. So instead, we just took the night off and enjoyed an amazing dinner with each other as great company. It was a much needed end to the trip after eating so much fast food and at random little restaurants: some good and some bad. Eric drove through the night and arrived in LA around 3am. We all simply went our separate ways and enjoyed a nice night of sleep in our beds.
