Conclusion of A Chapter
23,000 miles, 25 National Parks, 18 AirBnBs, 16 months, 15 states & 2 countries, 6 oil changes, 1 incredible little car, 0 tow trucks required, countless new friends and memories 🤯 No words. What an absolutely epic adventure this past year and a half has been. Two years ago to pretty much this very day I decided I needed a serious change of pace. Since my job is fully remote I essentially had a blank slate in front of me, but it didn't take long to decide I should definitely just go do more of what I had grown to enjoy most: road tripping in my 53 year old tiny orange car.
AirBnB hosts offer up to a 40% discount for stays 30 days or longer, which actually ended up averaging out cheaper than my LA rent, so the idea was to set up shop for a month in each state. My job also has the option of 4x 10 hour days, so am able to put in a full 40 hour week and then have 3 days to go out exploring with Fridays off.
And yeah everything worked out beautifully. The car is an absolute champ; it seriously just eats up the miles. I'm going to post more about my remote work setup and what all I was able to Tetris into the car, but yeah the journey itself has been just amazing. Seeing the whole western half of the US has been incredible in the first place, but doing it in a '71 BMW 2002 has just been something seriously special. It makes every day unique, be it a 300 mile travel day or a simple trip down to the grocery store. The people you meet, the conversations it starts, the smiles on both other peoples faces and MY OWN while driving around wasting gas is just impossible to beat. If you're reading this, thank you for enduring endless pictures of the car hahaha; it's just too much fun. I'm not much of a selfie person either so the car gets to take my place - "the star of the show" as my mom has been calling it...
Anyway, it's winter time now as I hunker down with family in St. Louis, so that means the car is taking a little break as well. There certainly are more adventures planned come springtime, but yeah for now it is hibernation time for the orange car!
My top 3 favs to revisit ASAP: Washington (or PNW in general), Utah, Colorado.....and California.
