The Long Way to L.A.

circumnavigation - noun - the act of traveling all the way around (Google).

Just in case some of you might have missed my presence on this blog, I have been "on vacation." Twenty days ago, my daughter and I disembarked from our home base in Jersey in order to drive across the country in eleven days. The mission? To deposit her and a fully packed 2013 Mazda 3 at UCLA, where she will be studying for her MBA. Admittedly, I had a cross-country adventure on my bucket list for quite sometime, yet the opportunity to go had never arisen until July 7, 2022. A couple of nights ago, I flew back to Jersey from L.A., making the circumnavigation complete. The driven route? Jersey through PA to Cleveland, Ohio (for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, of course), through Indiana to Chicago, Illinois, a half day's trip to Dyersville, Iowa to experience Heaven at the Field of Dreams, through South Dakota (loved the Badlands), Wyoming, Colorado, Utah (visited four out of the five national parks), Arizona (for about ten minutes), Nevada, and then finally, to Southern California (LaLa Land). 

Needless to say, a journey of nearly 3,000 miles contains more than a few "teachable" moments. Fortunately, we did not experience any hardships, such as engine trouble or a tire blowout, but in Colorado, we did witness one while accelerating up a mountain pass, and it wasn't pretty. (We were smart to have had new Dunlaps installed pre-departure.) From the traversing, what I learned about this country that I didn't already know was that 1. GMC or Ford pickups often with country music blaring are ubiquitous as are the men with sundry baseball caps who pilot them 3. the Democrats are right in that the country's infrastructure (mainly the roads) is crumbling (yet no one seems to care) 4. there are arrow-straight highways that are virtually empty warranting speed limits of 80 mph although that isn't fast enough for most who transcend it 5. Utah has the most entertaining, mercurial scenery 6. young people party in pools during the day now in Las Vegas 7. the 405 in L.A. isn't as bad as it is made out to be if you are from the New York area 8. most of the country is empty space as the bulk of the population lives in cities. 

I could probably go on and on and on, but I'll save you from my written loquaciousness. Just what is the primary takeaway, you ask? This country of ours (if you happen to be in it) and the miscellaneous folks who live in it are pretty amazing. If you haven't been out of your own state in a while, you owe it to yourself to do a little driving. Even though it may not be the optimal time due to exorbitant gas prices, you can think of it this way: perhaps there will never be "the right time" to do much of anything. As Nike pronounces, "Just do it." You'll be happy you did. 

#word-to-words, #spilled thoughts, #vocabulary, #good advice, #personal essay, #vocabulary