Meet'cha Halfway!
/
In exactly one month, my BFF Alex and I will be three days into our 11-day road trip out West!
Her and I have taken several road trips over the years — including our infamous Route 66 Road Trips (yes, we went twice, back-to-back years — more on this down below!)
No lie, up until the very first road trip, we were planning on going to Disney World for New Year’s Eve. We both had some time off at the end of the year, and thought, what better way to bring in 2015 than over fireworks at the most magical place on Earth?
Well…24 hours before our trip, I remember Alex asking me, “Ashley, if you could go ANYWHERE, where would you want to go?!” You see, gas prices were at an all-time low (like $1.50 / gallon) which is just unheard of these days! We had an entire week off. We could do ANYTHING.
It was like her and I both read each other’s mind….”The Grand Canyon!” we both exclaimed.
Without much time to think about it or plan, Alex asked her mom if she could borrow her SUV, and then came to Indy to pick me up. We had the car! We packed the car with a bunch of stuff! (Mind you, this was a couple days after Christmas and it was mighty frigid outside, so lots of coats / clothes / blankets made it into the vehicle). And then we started driving West.
The only thing with this plan, was that we didn’t have one.
We planned the trip as we went! We used Pinterest and blogs and Instagram tags to put together our road map. And sometimes, we just stopped along side of the road because we saw something we wanted to check out, and could.
The other stipulation?
We were trying to do it as affordable as we could!
We actually calculated what we spent after the whole trip was over, and it was around $300 / person. (I know, right?!) The beauty about traveling along Route 66 is there are a bunch of roadside attractions that are free to see. Things like the:
-Old Chain of Rocks Bridge
-Blue Whale of Catoosa
-Cadillac Ranch
-Midpoint
-World’s Largest Bottle of Ketchup
Every other night, we would pay for a place to stay. On the nights we weren’t sleeping in an actual bed? We turned the backseat of her mom’s Ford Escape into a bed. Meaning we moved everything from the backset to the front, put the seats down, and then layered blankets / pillows across to form our “makeshift bed”. It was quite a sight! We stopped at an awesome Rest Area in Oklahoma that treated us very well. We made sure to park the SUV in a safe, well-lit place. Where we could high-tail it if we needed to. But honestly, no one ever bothered us. Except Mother Nature when the car got so cold we had to turn it on for a tad to heat it back up before falling back asleep.
Oh, the memories!
During that first Road Trip, we made it all the way to Holbrook, AZ and stayed in the Wigwam Motel (otherwise known as the Cozy Cone Motel in the movie Cars). It was New Year’s Eve and we watched the ball drop on the tiniest TV screen. We went to bed knowing that tomorrow, the first day of the year, we would finally make it see the Grand Canyon!
Joke was on us, though….Ha Ha…because we woke up to inches of snow on the ground. They actually closed the road that you take to get to the Grand Canyon because of all the snow! All of that driving across the US to not even made it to our final destination?!?
That’s when we realized….it’s not about the destination, at all, really. It’s about the journey to get there!
The song “Find Yourself” (from the Cars Soundtrack) puts those feelings into lyrics that explain exactly how we felt! We decided next year, we would make the trip again, so we could finally see the Grand Canyon! But in the meantime, we would enjoy the rest of the trip headed back home.
And that’s what we did! The next year, we took Route 66 Road Trip - Round #2, and it was JUST as good. We did take a detour off Route 66 on the way out, and drove more through Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado, before trucking it into Arizona and witnessing the Grand Canyon. We got to skip along the Yellow Brick Road, sled the sand dunes, dip our cold feet into the warm hot springs, step in four states at once, experience Flinstone’s Bedrock City and more. Another amazing trip, for having very little of a plan.
But here we are now! Road Trip #3!
And this trip, is a tad different. Here’s why:
We’re going more NW not SW!
Our trip includes seeing the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, Bemidji, MN and some other places along the way! We didn’t realize when we started planning, but have soon learned that these National Parks have seasons, and some of the parks only have sections that will be open when we are traveling there.It’s quite a bit longer!
The last trips we took were maybe 5 or 6 days. This trip, though, is twice that!
We have a little bit of a bigger budget.
Which translates to: We’ll most likely not be sleeping in the car! Camping, AirBnbs, lodges, hotels are all on the list. But Pearl (my dear Kia Soul), I think you’re just going to be used as a mode of transportation this time and not an accommodation! You deserve that! (Especially because you are almost paid off….EEEEEE!!!!)It’s during May! Not December!
Meaning there are going to be more people out exploring, and things fill up fast, especially when you aren’t sleeping in your makeshift bed. Did you know reservations for Yellowstone usually fill a year in advance?!? Pray for us that we don’t freeze that night, if we cannot secure a room and try to camp in the 40 degree weather (YSNP will actually not let you sleep in your car). Hahah.
And because of this, we decided we needed a bit more of a plan than “just winging it”. Though I’m sure there will be some things we do, that are “off course” :)
So, what do you do when you + your BFF have pretty jammed packed schedules, but need a good day or so to plan?!
YOU MEET HALFWAY!
I don’t know why we didn’t think of this before. You see, she lives in South Bend, IN and I live in Plainfield, IN. Which translates to an almost 3-hour trip. But if we met half way, we could have a whole day together that wasn’t consumed of driving back and forth!
We discovered a little winery that’s drop dead center in between her house and mine, and took an entire day dedicated to one thing: Planning Our NEXT Road Trip!
Oh, how weird this felt. Alex and I are both planners by nature. But the fact that we hadn’t planned the last two trips….made us wonder if we should be planning this one in so much detail!
After sitting there, from when the winery opened until the winery closed, and several glasses of wine later, our 9-page Google Doc itinerary had a pretty great start! We finished our meet up by getting dinner at a local pizza shop, and sharing our thoughts of our upcoming trip, while the adrenaline of our next big adventure rushed through our veins!
I remember driving back home that night, and thinking, “You know what, meeting halfway is genius. We should really do this more often!”
Do you ever have those days that you just really need to talk to your BFF?
Or you need some of your Ma’s loving?
Or you’d like to catch up with someone you haven’t talked to in awhile?
Consider saying:
“I’ll meet’cha halfway!”
I think a lot of us get in the habit of thinking “they are ‘too far’ away” or “it’s their turn to come to me” or “I’ll see them during the holidays.”
But what I’ve learned lately: Community is SO important! Friendships ARE much needed! Having time to chit chat with those you love can really turn your day / week / month around. You don’t HAVE to wait until “later”. Why don’t you get together now?!
IF you are close enough (a couple hours away from one another), maybe you can MEET HALFWAY and enjoy a nice day together or at least do dinner?! Heck, you don’t have to plan a big, elaborate road trip. You can just visit with one another! Give it some thought!
I have a feeling as I get older and my time becomes more consumed with “adulting” activities (marriage and kiddos), our BIG road trips won’t happen every year. But perhaps, these mini-road trips AKA “meeting halfway” are going to become the cornerstone of our friendship <3
