Beyond The Blue

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Planning, booking, driving, flying; it’s all so exciting to me! What’s the saying? The journey is the destination. I agree with this to an extent, but let’s be honest, the destination is pretty darn great too! Growing up, I had the opportunity to do some traveling within the USofA with my family and friends, and with said travels came many great experiences.

Sometimes the aforementioned saying rings true. I recall a time almost a decade ago when myself and two of my buddies, Pete and Rich, decided to take a road trip to visit a mutual friend of ours in her hometown just outside of Chicago. What should normally be a six and a half hour drive from Minneapolis, ended up taking a seemingly judicious 14 hours. Not long after being on the open road, we stopped to take a walk through the woods to stretch our legs and give my DSLR a workout capturing the beautiful nature surrounding us. Later, the mutual decision was made to intentionally deviate from our route, and resulted in getting unintentionally lost. During our attempt to get back on the right track on this journey, the setting sun was providing a hair raising backdrop on an abandoned car junkyard just a short distance off the road. Naturally, we put on the four-way flashers, left the car on the shoulder and meandered through this cemetery for the very means of transportation with which we currently traveled.  After a while of walking amongst the tattered rust bucket cars, we realized this is how most teen horror movies start, and decided to hustle back (in as manly a fashion as we could muster) to our car, and got back on the road heading toward Chicago.

To be realistic, spring break might not always contain the best of memories for some. For many, I’m sure spring break could mean a boring trip with the family to a historical place that dad thinks “would make a great family trip!” Not only that, but he wants to drive the whole way! Which leaves you thinking, what did I do to deserve being stuck in the car listening to “DJ Dad” radio and hearing my sister complain about every sound that annoys her that I am apparently making? Good question. This wasn’t the case for me during this next trip, but it definitely had some paint involved.

 A year before my trip to Chicago, my long-time friend Nate invited me along with him to Palm Springs, CA for break. He needed to go out there to tour a well renowned school in his area of study. The travel and trip went great, up until the day we were going to ride ATVs and dirt bikes with his cousins at Ocatilla Wells State Vehicular Recreation Area (SVRA). To make what could be long, third-hand story short, you don’t want to find yourself in a seated position in the air – without an ATV underneath you at about 40mph – while facing the opposite direction of travel thanks to a giant pothole that was covered by the dust kicked up from the your friend’s ATV in front of you. “Why?” you ask. Simply because, this resulted in a concussion (helmet saved my life), cut up arms and back, with plum colored bruises covering half my body. I’ll still argue it was an extremely fun day, and after a water break and neck massage from Nate’s aunt, we went back out to ride. If only I had my GoPro back then to capture the insanity of this wreck!

Other times, the destination is the true focus and most memorable. In slightly over a week’s time from today, I will be traveling with my incredible family and loving girlfriend to the Dominican Republic (DR) to share in the beautiful nuptials of an extension of our family. This is to be followed by four blissful days at an all-inclusive resort to cap off our family adventure. Having never left the continental United States, I’m very much looking forward to this trip like a dormant tulip bulb to spring; eager to escape the frost covered ground of Minnesota and into the warm sunlight. However, as previously stated, I look forward to the travel portion as well, because after all, without the music and movie filled flights on my phone or the seat-back screen in front of me playing the airlines choice film for that day, it would certainly be a lot harder to arrive in the DR.

These are just a few tales of the many memories I have had with friends and family over the years. Please post your comments below telling of your fond and maybe not so fond memories of your own travels and happenings during Spring Break.