explore. dream. discover.

In less than two weeks, I will be embarking on my great American road trip. Some days will include driving The Mother Road, or Historic Route 66 as it more commonly known as. Passing through old ghost towns abandoned after the Dust Bowl, less than mediocre roadside attractions to provoke tourists to stay in town for awhile, and some of the best kept natural secrets of the country.

I firmly believe that at some point in every person's life, they should take a road trip. A serious drive-across-the-country road trip. A throw-away-the-mapquest-directions road trip. A don't-make-any-motel-reservations road trip. This is something I have wanted to do for the last six years now. Ok, so maybe seeing the worlds largest cross west of the Mississippi or the ten old graffiti-covered cars planted nose first into the ground aren't completely necessary. But having a picnic lunch at the Grand Canyon, seeing the oldest inhabited town in the country, the Acoma Pueblo, walking where a government building once stood in Oklahoma City that now preaches intolerance to terrorism, seeing the motel room Martin Luther King Jr. slept his last night in exactly as it was left, crossing the great Mississippi, seeing the home of country music... these are the experiences I'm talking about.

I'm not saying this road trip or seeing those things will change your life forever, but if you take away from it a photograph of yourself in front of somewhere new, or even a smile, then it was all worth it.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. -Mark Twain