Road Trips

I’m in the midst of one, a road trip that is. I should say I have completed one as this post has taken a while to finish. Even though this was more of a “destination” trip, I also wanted to make it a “journey” trip.

For me, a destination trip is all about getting there. Nothing else really matters. These can be trips traveled over familiar ground, business trips or just trips where you have to get there. They aren’t necessarily fun. It is all about knocking off the miles until I’ve arrived.

A journey trip is just that, a journey. It is all about discovery. While there may or may not be a set destination, it is the trip as a whole that really matters. The destination is just part of it and depending on what is discovered along the way, the initial destination may become secondary.

I journeyed across parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Colorado. I was able to see places where Butch Cassidy and his gang hung out, where gold and silver mines brought riches and hardship to folks and the towns they lived in. I saw water falls full of power and thunder and chasms of rock holding little streams that flowed peacefully on their journey to rivers named Roaring Fork and Colorado.

I saw high mountains and low deserts. I saw the midnight sky of the Mojave, filled with stars. To see the Milky Way stretch across the sky is truly a wonderful experience. Mix it in with the heat of the day being released from the ground and the cool night air and it is darn near perfect.

Really, all road trips are journeys. Travel introduces you to new things at every turn, even if you have travelled this way before. We only have to step (or sit) back and look to see and experience these new things and take in the wonder that travel brings us.