ROADTRIP...2 Girls, 6 Guys in a Big Pink Van

During my senior year of college it was time for a road trip. The two previous spring breaks were spent in Spain and Ireland, so the final year it was time for a real trip. We started planning the trip a few months in advance. There was a catch. We didn't know where to go. The decision was made to pick a location the night before. We secured a van, established the players (Mike, Mark, Bert, Jeff, Jake, Me, Tasha and Jodie) and planned the pre-party. We ask the then Senior Vice President of our college to be the dartmaster and pick our spring break location from a crisp map.

The rules were simple. Below the 36th parallel and a bar stop in each state we drove through. The party began, the dart landed on Tyler, Texas and we were headed off on spring break. The first overnight was in a small, rural community in southern Missouri where Jodie's father happened to live. It was an insane experience being in a part of the country where some still didn't have running water. But the area was beautiful. We continuted on through Oklahoma ending up in North Texas. It is another country there, it is Texas. We stayed at a run down hotel and discovered that North Texas is dry, meaning they don't serve booze. Dismayed, but confident the next day we would land in Corpus Christi, for a more normal spring break.

Unfortunately my alma mater didn't have a standard break, it usually came earlier in March. There weren't any spring breakers so we check ourselves into a truely fleabag hotel right on the water. The hotel had bath towels the size of hand towels and the other occupants didn't speak any english. But hey, we were in America. We made the most of the trip, getting wasted on the beach, running half naked into the Gulf, and enjoying the company.

We stayed in Corpus for a few days and then headed back to Iowa. This time I had the idea of running through Arkansas on roads that seemed to be straight and could cut our drive back down considerably. That didn't happen. The roads made the drivers sick because the 15mph up Ozark mountains proved to be exhausting and time consuming. At one point we came across a Jeep with no headlights screaming down a mountain. We were close to death.

The trip was amazing. It brought many of us closer together. It created a community that can always talk about, and fondly remember the trip. And it was a way to spend a spring break without spending too much money. (We share the cost of the fuel, hotel and som food...It was about $95.00 per person)

I talk about thie trip, because I am planning a new road trip. I have flown hundreds of thousands of miles over the past 14 months with my job and I need a break from the airports. A friend from my childhood, someone who has known me all of life will be getting married in Las Vegas this March. I am planning a trip through MO, KS, CO, UT, and NV with a return through AZ, NM, TX, OK, KS, MO and back to Iowa. This will give me a chance to see a few more (UT, NV, NM) states I haven't been to so I am confident I will make it to all 50 states by the time I am old. We will see. Let me know your ideas.

No Worries...
Nicholas

This is a random picture from New Zealand...only 11 more months.