Days 6 through 10, December 31 to January 4
Grand Junction, Colorado to Mesquite, Utah.

Driving through Utah

It’s 2010. Happy New Year! I landed in Grand Junction, Colorado on the afternoon of December 31st, and spent the next four days with Lee Lee and kids. I even got to see Debra and her daughter, Jessica,  before they headed back to Virginia New Years’ Day. Our eve of the new year was incredibly wild and fun-filled and I can’t repeat any of it here. Right!? Well, the kids went out but the three of us stayed home, watched movies, talked, laughed and had a blast.

Yesterday I had a little bit of a meltdown. Lee Lee was there to catch the pieces and quickly put them back together again. I think it was a mixture of being without the dogs for a few days (they stayed in the puppy spa up the road) and feeling the distance between family and me after so many hours on the road. Really, you can drive to LA from VA in 4 days, but I’ve spread it out over a little over a week. Being in Colorado with Jen and Alexa and then Lee Lee was the highlight of the whole traveling experience and well worth the detour. I can’t wait to go back now that I’ll be so much closer.

It’s easy to feel alone when you have so much change in front of you, and traveling is a discombobulating experience at times. The people that love you, I’ve found, are there to ground you and remind you that you are not alone. At it’s best, the freedom that comes with travel gives you many opportunities to experience who you are when you are alone to do things by yourself. It wasn’t until Colorado that I began to relax and enjoy the spontaneity that goes along with being on the road, and I don’t know if that was due to the change in altitude and atmosphere, or because I spent time with the women that know me well. I just know that I feel like I have more air around me now, and I’m almost sad to see the journey come to an end. I have 350.52 miles to go (5 hours and 19 minutes) before arriving in LA. I guess that’s when the journey really begins.