In March I flew to Palm Springs, rented a car, and drove to New Orleans. I’d never taken a road trip by myself and never visited that part of the country. I booked these flights two weeks out and hobbled together a vague plan from various sources. I almost cancelled the entire trip two days before I left because I was stressed about work, money, and was a little nervous/afraid about going solo. I don’t particularly love driving, I didn’t really want to be alone, and I was going to camp at a few national parks along the way even though I’d never really been camping. My sister told me I would regret cancelling the trip and I had to go. When I left Brooklyn it was 5 degrees and when I landed in Palm Springs it was 94. The plan was mostly this:
Palm Springs/Joshua Tree/Flagstaff/Grand Canyon/Sedona/Arcosanti/Tucson/White Sands/Las Cruces/El Paso/Marfa/Austin/New Orleans.
happened a little like this:
palm springs in March is saturated with the smell of honeysuckle/ met a man from Turkey who lives in Tennessee who thought people from Boston were the nicest people in America/ twice at the same gas station I pulled up to the wrong side to fill the gas tank/ was told there were no more camp sites at Joshua tree, didn’t quit and found one/ fell asleep within 60 minutes of sunset each time I camped/ paid $5/gallon for gas in death valley/ listened to all of Lemonade for the first time while driving across Texas and cried/ thought I was going to be abducted while visiting Arcosanti, but I made it out/ barely made the sunset at White Sands because I forgot to account for driving through time zones/ biggest conversation starter was my Michigan State tshirt/ West Texas clouds have my heart/ I might want to move to Austin?/ I didn’t want to come back to New York at the end and I am so so grateful I listened to my sister.
and looked a bit like this:
