Summer Memories – Moments through the Window: East to West, Coast to Coast.

For Poole College Senior Kathryn Daniel, the summer of 2012 was a cross- country adventure. She shared her reflections on her summer road trip.

When deciding how to spend this past summer, I could not help but reminisce on my two previous summers as an undergrad in NC State’s Poole College, serving as a congressional intern on Capitol Hill last summer and studying in Hangzhou, China, the summer before. I knew whatever I did (in my last summer as an undergrad) needed to be just as exhilarating; I never imagined it would be such a great adventure.

For many years, I have heard people mention a familiar dream: to set out and explore our beautiful country by car. Daily routines and obligations often get in the way. But ever since I heard a quote by Helen Keller – “Live is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” – I have tried to consider it when making important life decisions.

So, when the idea for a road trip across the United States came up last February, I could not make the thought go away. Here I was with the opportunity to take a great American road trip; yet, all I wondered was if this really was the right time to do it. After much contemplation, the answer was clear. I knew this would be my last summer before entering the ‘real world’, and my boyfriend, Derek McLamb, had just graduated from the Poole College of Management. We concluded this might be the only time to make this dream into reality.

After months of planning and multiple visits to the AAA office for travel books, we were finally ready to embark on our journey. Even combining both of our savings and all the pocket change we could dig up, we still only had a small budget to work with. Applying creativity and our business skills, we devised ways to stretch our money as far as possible. That meant countless PB & J sandwiches and spending most nights camping under the stars. Not only did we become masters at pitching our tent, but it all became surprisingly more fun than we had originally imagined. Even though there were nights when we were forced to set up camp in the pouring rain, we are still able to laugh about those nights.

In a little more than four weeks time, I experienced the biggest adventure of my life thus far: visiting a total of 19 states, each one different than the last, with continuously changing views right before our eyes. It’s not possible to use words alone to explain the beauty of our nation’s treasures: the magnificence of the Grand Canyon or the exquisite way the sun set on the Pacific Ocean at night; the rarest of colors, from luscious green fields in Kentucky to the brightest shade of blue lighting over the Kansas prairies. The best parts of our trip ended up being free.

As Derek described it, it was not until we began to see the “jagged Colorado mountains give way to the barren Utah landscape…” that we lost words to express what was before us. The scenes were inspirational and gave us a new appreciation for the country we call home. I cannot imagine having another day in which I begin with a hike up to the Hollywood sign and end up standing in front of the Bellagio fountains as they soar upwards to meet the lights of the Las Vegas strip. Whether touring vineyards in Napa Valley or wrapping my arms around a giant Redwood in the Muir Woods, I loved it all. Each day provided new destinations, new people to meet, and new memories to be made. Each experience showed diversity at its finest, and how beautiful it is to live in a country with such variation and complexity.

For me, traveling is about dreaming of landscapes or cities, imagining yourself in them, and then searching for ways to make those dreams become reality. I have always dreamed of traveling the world, but I am sincerely grateful I was able to start that journey in the country I call home. Not only was this road trip incredibly rewarding, it allowed me to discover so many things about America that I simply never knew before.

Thirty-one 31 days, more than 8500 miles traveled through 19 states, and thousands of photos later, we arrived back home in Raleigh, N.C. Looking back now that I’m back in school, it seems the entire trip passed like a blink of the eye; yet, I know my memories will last a lifetime: breathtaking views in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park and Arches National Park in Utah; the stark beauty and mystique of the stretch of highway in California know to most as Highway 1, nor the sounds of authentic jazz flooding New Orleans’ Bourbon Street.

I had never imagined I would have the chance to explore cities like San Francisco or discover that things really are bigger in Texas, nor that we could see all that we did in 31 days. There were countless fill-ups and punch-bug sightings as we zipped our way from state-to-state, east to west, coast to coast. I would not trade those moments through the window for anything.

To help preserve the memory, McLamb took hundreds of hours of video and compiled it all into an 11 minute video that he has posted on YouTube.