The Gas Station

It’s late at night and it’s almost my turn to drive. There is a gas station up the road Brady is going to pull into where we are going to switch drivers. I turn around and look in the back where the rest of our party is sleeping. Diana and Rachel are laying in the middle row and Luke and Sandy are in the back. The street lights illuminate the car at regular intervals as we speed down the untraveled road.

 

It’s been almost three months since I’ve slept in a bed and my neck is suffering the consequences of sleeping in cars. The six of us, three guys and three girls, are road tripping across the United States, venturing out of our small hometown of Owl’s Head, Maine. We spent a week and a half traveling down the Atlantic coast. We traveled from Boston and New York to Washington D.C. and the beaches of Virginia and finally to the back roads of Georgia and into Alabama. From Alabama, we went to Mississippi and New Orleans. That was my favorite. We spent a day and a half in New Orleans, sleeping in a parking that night; it was terribly hot, I recall. We drove north after New Orleans, up the Mississippi into St. Louis. We visited the Gateway Arch and then headed out towards the west. Kansas was the most boring drive of my life and every mile there felt like an inch. Finally we made it to the mountains of Colorado.

 

And all of that was only one month. The trip has sped by, each day bringing new surprises. We did make it to San Francisco, California, which was going to be our turning around point. Instead we head south to L.A. and San Diego. That was beautiful and turned out to be an excellent move. We headed over to the Grand Canyon and then through the deserts of New Mexico. I ate the most delicious taco of my life in Midland, Texas. From there we went over to Oklahoma City and back through Kansas to Omaha. Through Iowa, which turned out to be much better than I expected, and into Chicago. Two months had gone by once we reached Chicago and it was nearing the end of July.

 

I was quite surprised by the fact that I hadn’t really felt home sick once the whole trip. Yeah, I missed my parents and my two little sisters, but I enjoyed myself so much on this trip. We were so busy all the time and if I could, I would live on the road with Brady, Luke, Diana, Rachel, and Sandy. We were already great friends, all of us, but I’ve gotten to know them so much better on this trip. The best way to test a friendship is to live out of an eight-passenger van with them for t three months. I’d say our friendship passed.

 

Now, nearing the end of the memorable and eventful three months, we return up northern New York and into Vermont and New Hampshire. The trees are becoming familiar and even the same New England smell is returning. The great Atlantic Ocean is once again within a day’s drive and life is going to return to normal.

 

We pull over in a gas station in New Hampshire and I step out and stretch.

 

“Hey morons, we are stopping. Go potty if you have to,” Brady teases.

 

“Shut up, Brady,” Diana laughs, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. “Who’s driving?”

 

“Nathan,” Brady answers. The five of us leave Brady to fill up the car with gas and head inside to use the restroom.

 

After our break, we head back outside and get back in the car to continue our trek home.

 

I wave goodbye to the adventure of trying something new as the sun rises over dull Maine. Owl’s Head is just a few hours away.