megfowler.com

So.

One Toyota Corolla.

One camera.

Two girls.

Two weeks.

Three states.

3,000 miles.

Countless cups of coffee.

From Vancouver, BC to Cannon Beach, OR to Redding, CA to Fresno, CA to San Diego, CA to Fresno, CA to Eureka, CA to Cannon Beach, OR to Vancouver, BC.

And a gazillion places in-between.

Some quick conclusions:

• We don’t ever need to see the following places again: the drugstore in Hillsboro, OR; Portland, OR; Sacramento, CA; Chico, CA; Modesto, CA; Fresno, CA; the restrooms in Garberville, CA; Grants Pass, OR; or Oakland, CA.

• Life will suck just a little if we never see these places again: Coronado, CA; La Jolla, CA; Hodads at the beach; Port Orford, OR; San Diego, CA; Santa Monica, CA; Cannon Beach, OR; and the exceptional restrooms at the Hotel Del Coronado, Coronado, CA (someday we might even stay there.)

• We mean no offense in expressing these preferences. I mean, it wasn’t Fresno’s fault that a girl tried to spit on me, or Modesto’s fault that my Starbucks cup exploded on my shirt or Redding’s fault that it was TOO DAMN HOT TO CAMP or Garberville’s fault that there were creatures lurking behind the toilet or Chico’s fault that there was so much construction and so few flaggers who had a clue.

• Taking pictures from the car window while moving? Tough.

But whatever. It worked for us.

I’m obviously going to write about all of this in more detail (since when have I EVER been succinct?), but for now, the important thing is that we did it, we had an amazing time, we got home safely, and I have to work in, oh, eight hours.

I’ll leave you with this, from an email I wrote Eric (our host in San Diego) on the day we got home. Because I said it right once, and odds are I’d mess it up the second time. I don’t think Eric will mind:

Nothing changed much while we were gone -- the
leaves on the trees are a bit more gold than green and the temperatures
have dropped just a little -- but I feel like a different person in a lot
of ways.

I mean, I actually WENT somewhere. I DID something. Something full of
memories and tracked with photos and apparent in the freckles on my skin.
I love it.

Now I'm watching baseball on my own couch, having washed my own floors and
cleaned my own bathroom and done my own thing for a few hours, but I can
sense something inside of me that feels slightly switched or adjusted or
changed.

I see now that I'm capable of stepping out financially and
physically into different challenges. To someone like you -- someone who
has been places and done things and taken chances -- it can't seem like
that huge a deal, but I suppose that makes no difference. It might not
seem significant to anyone but me on the whole planet. But I think I'm
learning that that's ENOUGH. It's enough to have something mean something
to me, and to do it for that reason alone.

So many changes this year. So much stepping out into uncertainty. And so
many of those steps have brought heartbreak... not to be dramatic, but how
else do you say it?

But this one brought joy.

It really, really did.

And that, if nothing else, makes up for leaving all my underwear in Fresno.