On Monday morning August 15th, I said goodbye to Palm Beach County, FL and headed west. Although I was not looking forward to days on end of driving, I was the lucky one driving a car. Stanton had to navigate the huge 22’ Penske truck complete with full car trailer attached! I am still not sure how he did it, particularly in and around cities [cough, LA traffic is insane, cough], but two people, two cars, and the truck with all our belongings arrived in one piece.
Since we weren’t together, I had only some books on CD and the endless countryside to keep me awake. Having never spent any time in the country’s interior, it was pretty cool to get to check it out on a very first person basis. Unfortunately, a lot of what I was “checking out” was hours and hours of the same flat, hot scenery, but there were some beautiful sights to see, and a bit of adventure to spice up the long days.
Luckily, I followed a different route than my fellow blogger Brian Sim who hailed from Philly, so here’s a look at America the Beautiful, the Southern Tour. A retrospective, in pictures:
22' truck and car on trailer departing beautiful South Florida
Day one from Jupiter, FL to Atlanta, GA was the easiest day for many reasons: we only had to drive 10 hours, I had my mom as co-pilot as she had generously flown down to help us pack and was getting a lift home to Atlanta with me, and chronic numb butt syndrome (not to be confused with CMBS) hadn't set in yet.
The next driving day was the longest haul of the trip, a 16-hour slog on I-20 from Atlanta through Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana to Dallas, TX. With a truck as loaded down as ours, max speeds top out at 60-65 mph which really adds time to the trip.
I snapped a photo of every state border as I crossed into it.....
...except in Texas, which I was in for so long I had to resort to shooting the only major cities on the 12-hour leg from Dallas to the western border!
I think Stanton got up 10 times in the night to look outside and be sure our truck was still there!
Day Four finally started to introduce us to some real scenery. We crossed into New Mexico almost right away, and I don't know if it was enchanting or not, but I sure was glad to see another state!
There were mountains, rock outcroppings, the Colorado River, and cacti too.
Hitchhiker's Paradise
I remember reading about this in sixth grade Social Studies!
Something I wasn't aware of was the frequent great dust storms that tear through the southwestern states particularly in the summer. Apparently one rolled through Phoenix one day ahead of us. The way I found out about them was curious signs like this one along the highway. Seemed like a phenomenon it was best to avoid.
So much for that new Lasik!
I was especially grateful to have taken this route, because otherwise I might have missed a series of billboards with some very important news warning me that the world was going to end on May 21st. Then I looked closer and saw it said May 21, 2011. So I guess to answer everyone's question, Heaven looks a lot like.... California!!
HEAVEN!
So on the 5th day we were finally in California, and after a few stretches of 35 mph over the mountains, got to LA. If you have ever considered driving a 22' truck with 10' trailer attached around the streets of Los Angeles, my advice is: DON'T. It's still not really clear to me how we managed to move onto busy Sepulveda Blvd. and unload all of our belongings into our second floor apartment without someone getting killed, but everything got inside. Of course, once it was there, I realized that moving a 3BR 1500 sf home into a 2BR 900 sf apartment may or may not have been well thought out.
Hmmmmm...
Fleeing the scene of the crime, we headed up to my new campus home to walk around UCLA and Westwood. The beautiful campus and the absolutely amazing weather (particularly in contrast to the 105-degree heat index I live with for many months of the year in Florida) made me forget all about the long drive, my sore muscles, and the apartment chaos. What a fantastic place!
UCLA's picturesque campus, not taken from a website
The b-school campus is fresh and modern and did I mention the weather?
Now that my epic journey is over, LA and business school at Anderson truly feels real. I can't wait to begin in exactly two weeks!
-Charlotte Baxter
