A 35-Hour Road Trip

Fall break is supposed to be four days. A traditional weekend plus an added Monday and Tuesday of no classes. This four day weekend typically consists of going home and seeing family. Driving down to Virginia Beach or the Outerbanks and relaxing with friends. Maybe camping or hiking in the area. A trip to Florida? Now that’s just ridiculous. Driving to Florida? Now that’s insanity.

But then again, this is senior year and we are living on the edge. On Thursday at 9pm Austin, Sarah, Joey and I pulled out of campus and embarked on a 35-hour road trip. We had everything planned to a tee – snacks and drinks stashed away in a cooler, Mapquest directions printed out somewhere in the car, a stack of mixed CDs made the hour prior to our departure, and an entire driving system in place: we would be split into pairs. The driver and passenger would have to be awake together and the pair in the back would have to sleep. We would take four hour shifts and then switch. We would drive through the night unless we got too tired to continue. There would be no stops unless it was “i’m-about-to-pee-in-my-pants” necessary. Or if it was at South of the Border. Or if we wanted another caffeinated soda. Or if we saw something so cool that we were pretty much forced to pull off the highway to see it. Ok, so maybe we made some stops along the way.

People couldn’t understand why we would spend two of our four five day weekend driving. Sure, maybe we might have been able to go tubing another time or two with my brother.  And maybe my tan would have stuck for longer than an hour if I had spent more time on the beach. But it also would not have been fall break without that car ride. Nor would it have been the same had it not been for our 2AM incredibly sketchy stop at the South of the Border stop where we took our pictures with Pedro or an early morning breakfast at the “All American Waffle House” (read as: another very sketchy food stop). And as we restlessly pulled back into Williamsburg, after driving through sunsets and sunrises, I couldn’t help but think about how absolutely wonderful and surreal the past five days had been.