As an intro, my third assignment at my place of business is a 4 month stint on a naval base out at Lemoore NAS, California. I will get an opportunity to work on actual F-18's and jet engines every day, and might even get a chance to go on an aircraft carrier, who knows. Lemoore is kind of in the middle of no-where, but is about 3 hours away from everything awesome. I expect to get into some crazy adventures on the weekends traveling to new and exotic lands. As a bonus, I was given permission to drive out there from Boston with my California-bound compatriot and co-worker, Chris Hogan. If that weren't enough, philosopher Geoff Whitworth and philanthropist Dave Olsenglubin, my two awesome friends from home, might even join me on the trip West in my new Mazda 3. That's right, Chris Severino: car owner. It's been a crazy couple weeks organizing and planning.
I knew I wanted to road trip out there the moment I heard we could drive, so step one was getting a car. I decided to go with a Mazda (since American cars are teh suck), a sedan (kickass 24/33 mpg), and a new 2010 (I'll be putting 7,000 miles on it IMMEDIATELY, so I figured might as well get something with a warranty). I will probably add pictures later, but it looks something like this:
But in reality, I guess it's more like this:
Anywho, just when I think I'm all set with my car and insurance, I realize that Lauren is moving out to go to grad school in Richmond, I have to get ready to move from Porter to Kendall (with Arlen and Cronin), set up an apartment/furniture/utilities in California with Hogan, set up my travel route, accommodations, and pack for the trip West. Eating will probably have to happen also, so I'll need to figure that out. Oh, and I work a 40 hour week. At least the car is all set. Hopefully.
Right now my plan is tentative, but has all the necessary ingredients for an awesome road trip. Geoff and Olsen are maybies, but holy crap, that would be awesome. Hogan and his girlfriend are traveling in his car, going a similar route, but we won't be at the same places the entire time. The idea is to fully move into the Kendall apartment Sept 1, then leave bright and early Sept 2. Here is a list of my current thoughts for destinations and their respective dates:
Sept 2 Boston to Niagara falls
Sept 3 Niagara falls to Chicago
Sept 4 Chicago to St. Louis
Sept 5 St. Louis to Kansas City
Sept 6 Kansas City to Cedar Bluff State Park, KS
Sept 7 Cedar Bluff to Boulder, CO to hopefully visit my cousin Blake
Sept 8 Boulder to Arches National Park, Utah
Sept 9 Arches, UT to Grand Canyon, southern rim
Sept 10 Hike the crap out of the Grand Canyon
Sept 11 Grand Canyon to Las Vegas via Hoover Dam
Sept 12 Las Vegas to Hanford, CA (my apartment)
If Geoff and/or Olsen come, I would then drive up to San Francisco to stay with Jimmy
Sept 13 Drive back to the apartment in Hanford, ready for work the next day
We'll see how my plans go. Everything is so terrifyingly tenuous right now that even the slightest breeze could change things. Once things settle down, I'll post an update of the plan and proposed route.
