Whitney and Ally's excellent adventure:

In lieu of past promises to myself to go on a road trip after graduating the public institution the United States so satirically calls high school, I have left my house in a caravan of one to see the world. Well, as much of the world that is to be seen by two girls traversing the mountainous trail from Arizona to Canada.
  

Packed to capacity and ready to go

Day one on the journey began at seven A.M.
Waking up to the ill-timed alarm clock that interrupted my dreams of an industrial park labyrinth, I rolled out of bed and began loading the Honda Odyssey. Day one of the journey began with a groan, and a shuffle, and absolutely no breakfast or a shower. Despite the downfalls that mornings generally offer, I left the house with a smile and skedaddled off to my travelmateWhitney's house to load the cooler and pick up some of her things. Whitney is my best friend, a talented and beautiful blond of whom I met one fateful afternoon in Montessori school when she stole the toy I was playing on. Apparently she charmed me later that afternoon because when I got home from school I told my parents, in that cute fashion that only three year old girls can accomplish, "I met this girl named Whitney, and she's lovely!" And we've been best friends ever since, causing havoc and mayhem, breaking hearts and spinning tales every day since, until one day (today) we awoke to find ourselves ready to drive five thousand miles armed only with mace and hiking boots.
When I finished loading the car this morning, it contained much more than we could possibly ever need on a three month journey, let alone the three week one we had planned! The back of the van was outfitted, complete with a mattress and a cooler. Our elegant chariot of comfort awaited.
 

Gassing the van for the ride up!



The best stories are those where everything goes wrong, the protagonist overcomes obstacles, and in the end lives for ever after in a rather happy fashion. Fortunately for Whitney and I, the day went smoothly: we went to church, met to coolest christian biker gang on this hemisphere, Whitney sang and played piano for worship, our friends prayed over us, my parents and my sister bought us a delicious sushi lunch, and at one'o'clock we filled the tank with gas and made our way, without peril, to Whittier, California.

 
 

Leaving Arizona



The California/Arizona border

  


Passing some patriots on the way. And yes, their liscense plate does, in fact, say "Ah-MUR-can!"

 

The road ahead. I'll look at that as a good omen.



 



Whitney has a fuzz on her toenail... oops



We listened to an audio book about finance and Wall Street on the way, and made it to the door of her Great Aunt Carols house in one piece. All on a single tank of gas, I may add.

We were greeted by a friendly house in a nice neighborhood. Upon entering the house we found we were not the only guests to inhabit the space. Situated neatly on shelves, in display cases, in corners, lining walls, on beds, and tables, and even filling boxes in the garage, were the beautifully painted, blank eyed, soulless stares of a thousand porcelain dolls. All were elegantly clad, and nicely displayed, the house had become a museum.



Dolls...



Dolls...



Everywhere!



And a puppy..

Carol and her husband Joe, and her son Matt, had prepared a wonderful dinner of ham, green beans, sweet potatoes, noodle casserole, bread, and for dessert, jello with marshmallows on top.

We ended the night walking through the neighborhood, taking a few pictures of the cute houses (which didn't come out), and some funny signs.

One of the funny signs

Then we came back and talked to Carol, Joe, and Matt until eleven. It was a beautiful start to a wonderful adventure. Tomorrow we will hit the beach, making sure to leave after nine so as not to hit the traffic for which LA is known so well. As an author, everything going so well makes a rubbish story, but for an adventurer, the reality was some kind of wonderful.



Adventure Now.

My life has been composed of a series of adventures. Not in the exotic sense of the word where I embark on long journeys to vast lands on a quest to discover and catalog every new species I come into contact with. I see adventures through the less glorious, entirely amused eyes of a twelve year old. My ventures would take me across town to the wilds of Turtle Park where I would ride one of those namesake metal turtles into the unknown lands of... the rest of turtle park. Since they were statues, my turtle would usually not take me so far as I would like, but drop me off with quite the walk ahead of me.
In summers I have explored every inch of my town on roller blades, bikes, or simple afternoon constitutionals, and I have, rather illegally, gotten to know the grounds of the golf course in the center of my town very well. Midnight tours and mid day adventures have allowed me to grow accustomed to the playground that is eighteen holes surrounded in a myriad of trees, ponds, and sidewalks.
As I grew older, theatrical fishing expeditions in makeshift lakes (pools of rainwater on the side of the road inhabited only by dirt), extended off-trail hikes, and distant ventures to the Grand Canyon and California without parental supervision, became my outlet for adventure.
And now I am eighteen, and my scope for travel has widened, my wanderlust has blossomed, and I am ready to face the world. High school has stopped me for four years, and I am afraid that four years of college will kill my desire to travel. Or even worse, I will have dreamed for so long, and studied for four more years to become a travel journalist, only to go out into the wild and discover that my hate of bugs does not overcome my desire to see the world. That would be a horrid realization and a waste of study. I need to be sure of my desires, and I need to rekindle my passions. So I have decided (even after getting into the school of my dreams!) to take some time off of college and visit some of the planet we call home.
Currently I am in Alabama, getting eaten alive by bugs, seeing more water and lovely green trees than I ever knew existed, and meeting some of the nicest, most polite, god fearing, sweet tea drinking people on the face of the planet. Next week I will take a stroll through Colorado, and then it will be off to work to fund my next great adventure.
On September Fifteenth I will leave Phoenix Arizona, the desert oven that I call home, and make my way south to Costa Rica! While in that beautiful land that is full of beautiful people I will be caring for my favorite animals, the two and three toed Sloths, and then help out at a Sea Turtle conservation project. I will be away from home and alone in the wild for two and a half months.
All my adventures will be recorded here.
And then, I will go to college.