My June 2024 three-week road trip through Arizona marked the longest I’d ever been away from my place of residence, and the farthest I have ever driven in a single go (a record that will stand for a few years, I’m sure). It ended up being 20 days: I left my driveway in Bradenton, Florida on the evening of May 31st, and returned at precisely 9:17pm on June 19th.
At first the trip was only going to be a 13-day road trip. I planned for a three-day drive, then three days in Tucson, Arizona for a science conference (the whole reason I traveled to AZ in the first place), five days of travel, and finally, three days back home.
13 days became 15.
15 days became 16. Then 17.
I thought 17 days would be it, a nice loop that would go from Tucson up to Petrified Forest, across to the Grand Canyon, down to Sedona and Phoenix, then get back on I-10 and ride it all the way back to Florida.
Fate decided to intervene and change my plans one more time, by way of one of my high school students. I had told my classes about my Arizona trip, getting them excited about travel and all the things I was doing. Many of them follow me on social media, so they were going to follow along the journey. A student in my second period class came up to me as I showed them my map. She held up a picture and asked, “Where is this? I’ve always wanted to see it.”
What did she show me? Horseshoe Bend in Page, Arizona.
Right then and there, I knew my plans had just changed yet again. While planning, I had considered driving up to Page, but decided against it in all scenarios due to it being a full 150 miles out of the way from the Grand Canyon South Rim. My student showing me the picture immediately changed my mind. I knew very little about Page, other than it bordered Utah and was overall a fantastic geological area marking the unofficial head of the Grand Canyon.
You see, I was about to embark on the single longest trip I’ve ever taken, and in the moment, I could afford the extra days of travel up and back. It’s a road trip. Solo. Across the country. The extra 150 miles would amount to only 2.5% of my total mileage. I had to take the extra turn, and go the extra mile. To not do so would almost be a disservice to the spontaneous spirit of adventure.
A quick but relevant aside: the Butterfly Effect is to a hypothetical scientific hypothesis that says, “A butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world might cause a hurricane to form on the other.” That is to say that one small thing can cause a chain of events to occur that lead to something larger.
And that’s exactly what happened:
- I showed my class the map of my Arizona trip.
- My student showed me a picture of Horseshoe Bend, finally prompting me to add it to the itinerary.
- At Horseshoe Bend, a photographer from Australia who was taking pictures beside me asked me to take a picture of him on his cell phone.
- We got to talking, and met the next morning for coffee and breakfast.
- He told me he would be back in the United States in August, and had always wanted to photograph the Bentonite Hills in Utah.
- We planned a trip to Utah.
- We spent 10 days road tripping Utah from August 21st to August 30th.
Life at its core deserves to be about the human experience, the exploration, the discovery, the connection, the stories. As an education nonprofit entrepreneur, and in my travels, I find it so important to push for and create enriching opportunities and experiences. In these situations, having a plan is important, but having flexibility, more so. There are paths around every corner, and it’s up to you to choose those you wish to see where they lead. Mine made me new friends with whom I embarked on a new adventure. Every moment made a memory, and this gathering of memories and experiences is how we shape ourselves and craft our lives.
As for my student: I gifted her a Horseshoe Bend travel journal, and encouraged her to document her experiences, big and little, so she can look back on a record of what’s she’s done and how it has brought her to the moment she returns to those memories.
I’m proud to say, only a few weeks after I returned from Arizona, I invited her to join some of my employees and I on a (free) trip to Kennedy Space Center, a place where her grandmother had always wanted to go but hadn’t gotten a chance to. It ended up being one of my student’s first journal entries, and the first, I hope, of many adventures of her own.
Leave a Reply