I was watching a video the other day about a guy who took the train from SF to Denver which is supposed to be the most beautiful train route in the U.S. He showed some of the landscapes from the observation deck and I started to tear up. This always surprises me when it happens because I don’t feel these things on a daily basis.
A few years ago. . .
About this time seven years ago, I was feeling lost and in need of a big change. I was 26 and had been out of college and working a full-time job for multiple years. My life felt a little stale and boring. I lived in a beige apartment (literally) in a horrible location. My job was the about the only interesting part of my life and even that was miserable most of the time. The only upside was the fact that I traveled often and went to our headquarters in Italy multiple times a year. Otherwise, the day to day stuff was ageing me at an alarming rate. Something had to give.
I applied for two jobs: one at a big company in Nashville and another a small, independent book publisher in Oakland where my brother worked. The one in Nashville paid very well, had a bonus structure and would be an easy 2.5 hour move. It felt safe and a nice lateral-ish move in terms of location and experience. The opportunity at my brother’s company was different. It would require me to move nearly 2,500 miles (roughly 4,000 km) across the country.
It was the fall of 2018 and to say I’d had a bad year would be an understatement. I caterogize 2018 as one of the worst years of my life with some major noteworthy highlights. In the beginning of January, I lost my grandmother which set the tone for the year. I spent the first six miserable months wading through what felt like an impossible grief which transitioned into a lingering feeling of numbness. At the time I was working at a job that while interesting and fun, was one of the most stressful experiences of my life.
The highlights were: I traveled to Italy for the first time, I swam in the Adriatic Sea, I celebrated the summer solstice in a small Italian town, etc. , etc. I went to Las Vegas for work which was kind of interesting but ultimately miserable. I spent many hours in my car commuting back and forth to work listening to my trial of Sirus XM, again, feeling about 20 years older than I actually was. I didn’t see friends very often, most of them had moved away from Knoxville. To bring things to a head, I felt so much anxiety and stress that I ended up fainting while driving home on the interstate from a work event and almost killed myself. I had hit a breaking point and something needed to change.
I received the offer for the job in Oakland on Dec. 4 with a start date of January 7th. This allowed me a few weeks to sell all of my stuff, wrap things up at my current job, celebrate the holidays and then hit the road. As soon as I decided to take the job, I felt like I was plunging straight into a dark abyss. I’ve found this is the feeling you get when you make a big decision like this and there’s no turning back. I’d feel this way years later when we moved to Germany.
We sold almost everything, well anything that wouldn’t fit in our car. We spent weeks getting rid of things and putting things into piles. My mom was visiting when I received the offer and was the first to know. I immediately looked at apartments online and my brother graciously toured and secured one for me. Everything was in place and the next part was the journey across the entire country to get there.
This wasn’t the first time
In the spirit of honesty, it’s worth noting this wasn’t my first time traveling across the entire country for a move. Back in 2016, we moved to Arizona briefly before realizing it was hot as shit and ultimately a gigantic mistake. This experience was a “pull the rip cord” kind of deal versus “give it some time” and yeah, there’s not much more to be said there. Either way, this would be my second time driving across the country with Russ to start over somewhere new. That’s the thing about the U.S., it does give you the feeling that you can pick up and move across the country and start over. It’s gigantic with something for everyone. Sometimes this feeling of endless opportunity is merely an illusion but it’s floating around nonetheless.
Jan 1, 2019
A new year and a fresh start. On the morning of New Year’s day in 2019, we packed the car and set off towards our first stop which would be Little Rock, Arkansas. Total driving time: 8 hours (maybe more including stops for Russ). The car was filled to the brim with our luggage, personal belongings, artwork, even our TV for some reason. We left a comfortable amount of space for Russ to have his bed in the backseat but that was about it. We had a luggage shell on the roof with more things that was packed tight. We made one pit stop on the first day to see my college roommate who lived in Memphis. Funny enough, this was the last time I saw her now that I think about it. After, we took a short drive to a small guest house across the border into Arkansas. We had three more days of driving ahead of us.
Albuquerque , New Mexico
The next stop was Albuquerque which was a 12 hour + driving day. We woke up early in the morning, stopped at a gas station for coffee and granola bars and kept on going. I had packed snacks for us but we were blowing through them quite quickly. I downloaded movies on my tablet like Mona Lisa Smile (lol) and we played them through the bluetooth speakers while Adam drove. We listened to podcasts and talked about the scenery as it started to change drastically once we left Arkansas.
In my opinion, New Mexico has one of the most interesting landscapes of anywhere I’ve been in the U.S. In some parts, it feels like you’re on the moon. A few years prior when I drove to Arizona, Adam had told me how interesting NM was and he was right. I stayed there with our family friends who had an incredible house that looked over a valley. They had floor to ceiling windows with views of the multi-colored gorge and moon-like craters. Their house was surrounded by nature, even though it was in a suburban neighborhood. They warned me about taking Russell outside as there were mountain lions and wolves seen regularly. At night, you could hear them howling which was cool but also gave me anxiety with Russ.
Anyway, I remember going out onto their balcony at night and even in September it was so cold. I wrapped myself in a blanket and looked at the stars. I’ve never experienced a night sky so clear where I could see the stars like that. What I recall the most was the silence. It was so quiet as I sat outside it almost made me uncomfortable at first. I couldn’t hear a car, plane, or person making any sort of noise. I haven’t experienced silence like that since.
Back to this drive, as we drove through New Mexico, we looked at the snow covered craters and desert-y landscape. It went on for miles and miles with clear visibility. The highways look like the movies where you can see everything in front of you without any obstruction. As we tackled our bigger drive on day two, my nerves were settling about the big move. It didn’t feel so scary anymore with Russ and Adam along for the scenic ride.
We made it to Albuquerque and it was late, almost midnight. It was so cold in January, a type of cold I wasn’t expecting. We ran into yet another detached guest house we booked and tried to warm up. There was a small faux fire heater in the house so we turned it on and sat in front of it until we warmed up. Russ jumped into bed with us and we huddled for warmth. It was a cozy little apartment.
Bakersville, CA
The next morning, we spent some time deicing the car and windshield. We had another big day of driving ahead, something to the tune of nearly 12 hours. In hindsight, I didn’t map the driving days well. I put us at a doable drive on day one making days two and three nearly 12-13 hours, with the last day clocking in at four hours. The idea was that we’d get to Berkeley with some energy to unpack or go to the store, which we did. Anyway, these were some long days of trekking across the country. Russ was a trooper, though.
Bakersfield is one of the worst places I’ve ever been, even for a night. It’s kind of sad and scary (lol). We stayed in an apartment in a literal junkyard and I was convinced all of our stuff, including our car, would be stolen by the time we woke up. The apartment was creepy and I immediately regretted our decision to make this our last stop of the trip. Honestly, we should have stayed in L.A.
Anyway, it’s hard to put this into writing and explain how it was to experience it firsthand but we had an unwelcome visitor. A gigantic dog emerged out of nowhere, used his cartoonishly large paw to open our apartment screen door and sat in our chair. We picked Russ up and held him so nothing would happen but the dog did not want to leave. He was a bull dog mix that weighed something to the tune of 125lbs. I’m sure in the end he was harmless but the use of his paw to open doors freaked me out. . .lol
We woke up to our car and things still sitting in the parking lot (to our disbelief) and we started our shortest day, traveling up the 5 to our new home in Berkeley.
Home Sweet California
For our last day, we drove through the state of California. We headed north towards the Bay Area, our new home. Our apartment was waiting for us and a new job. We were going to live in an in-law suite in the bottom of a witchy looking house at the base of the Berkeley Hills. We’d have a small side yard with a gate for Russ and were a short walk from Solano Ave., a street with shops, restaurants, a gym and a cinema. It was the perfect place for us to land.
When we arrived, we unloaded our stuff and let Russ sniff around his new house. We went to IKEA and got all the things we needed to get set up in place. I started work on Monday morning and it would end up being one of the best jobs I’ve ever had where I made good friends who I still have in my life today. I got to work and live near my brother for the first time. On Saturday mornings, we’d wake up early and make coffees to go and explore around us. We’d drive over the Golden Gate Bridge, go for hikes, see concerts, go to basketball and baseball games, try new foods, travel to Monterey and eat cherries on the beach. We visited Napa and went to the wineries. We experienced our first California earthquake. We went to Disneyland. We watched the surfers and ate burritos on the beach on a random Friday afternoon.
It was one of the best decisions I (rather we) ever made. Watching that video about the guy traveling across the U.S. and experiencing different terrain across the country made me think of my own journey to get to California. It was poetic in a sense. I got to travel across the entire country before arriving to a new chapter of my life.
This was our small side yard a week or so after we moved in. I loved being able to only wear a jean jacket in January. I remember this day well and when the photo was taken, I promised myself to keep that memory. We walked to Solano Ave. to get a burrito and a drink. We came back and ate it outside at our new patio table. We hung lights out there and made it cozy. Russ loved going out there in the morning and sniffing. Sometimes when the weather was nice we’d put his bed out there, too.
Anyway, that’s enough about that! Here are a few more photos from that time and as I once wrote as a caption, “me fully embracing my new life in California.”
