DAY 1: Chattanooga, TN to Vicksburg, MS

JULY 16

0 mi to 446.5 mi

This is the take off morning, and I got off to a late start for technical reasons. But by 11:30am I made my dad take some photos of me in my car window for posterity and then I made him leave back for work before I took off.

I had already planned ahead that I was going to be stopping at the River Town campground in Vicksburg, MS because it was a solid half-way point between home and Austin that didn’t involve me arriving in the dark. I decided to set some ground rules for myself before leaving, one of the important ones being to avoid driving at night unless I’m getting to a place with a friend already there. There’s just too much uncertainty already with arriving somewhere new and alone, so I wanted to just get rid of that added stress.

I popped on a audiobook and set through a pretty familiar drive until I got to around Birmingham, then it was pretty new territory and it really sunk in that I was driving farther and farther away from home. But it felt good! The road wasn’t too exciting, and I needed a nap from all of the build-up this morning. I tested out my car bed for a nap and passed out for 20 minutes haha. I will be having great sleeps on this journey.

Today was overall uneventful. I passed though rain and wind and blue skies and made it to spot 78 in Mississippi by 6:00pm - just in time for calling home and dinner and journaling and thinking.

DAY 2: Vicksburg, MS to Leander, TX

JULY 17

446.5 mi to 1027.1 mi

Despite cracking my windows for ventilation last night, it is still very sticky in a car in the middle of the humid South in the summertime. But it is so lovely waking up so close to the sunrise.

I got off to a strong start with free coffee, an apple, and last years Lazers and Blazers mix on CD. It honestly creates a very amped up morning environment, ideal for driving 8 hours across 3 states. I left Mississippi, drove across the top of Louisiana, and into Hill Country Texas to right outside of Austin.

After getting in to Texas, I took a detour to head towards Brenham, a really quaint town with personality. Unfortunately, everything was closing for the day, but I’d love to come back some day. Then I routed to Georgetown, just to see as much as I could. I would stop off occasionally to take pictures, and even once a couple pulled up right behind me to ask if I needed any help. Texas! But my favorite stop was right along a fence with a tree and must have been 10 black cows lazing around underneath.

My cousin Roxanne works at the Dig Pub close to her house, so I stopped off there first for dinner and drinks and then headed to her and carl’s place for the night. She and I brainstormed for a while what I should get up to tomorrow.

DAY 3: Leander, TX to Leander, TX

JULY 18

1027.1 mi to 1204.6 mi

I woke up with both Frankie and Belly (Roxie and Carl’s dog and cat) in my bed and under my curtains. I looked at the weather for the day and even though I initially wanted to head downtown to the lake side to walk around, it was too hot and humid to even consider that ha. I started with coffee and a kolache from Sorrento’s Drive-Thru and it kept me the best company! I went for a day trip to Gruene, which Roxie recommended, and it was the sweetest small town! Blossoming trees and lots of antique shops and the famous Gruene Hall.

It’s only about an hour outside of the city, so on the way back I decided to treat myself to a movie and went to for Yesterday at the local Alamo Drafthouse. It was such a good way to end the night! I adored it. Then went for more drinks at Roxie’s pub before I headed home. We watched the Office, especially “Frame Toby” until it was late and off to bed.

DAY 4: Leander, TX to Leander, TX

JULY 19

1204.6 mi to 1264.5 mi

I let myself have a late morning and headed to the new central Library to do some computer work and explore. There is the Cookbook Cafe where all the dishes are from cookbooks in the library. I sat for a while figuring out some of my next steps. I booked in at the Tumble In Marfa RV park for tomorrow night and then went to explore the rooftop overlooking Lady Bird lake. It’s so sunny out, so I made the most of the sweat and went for a walk around the lake under and around the bridges and little shorelines. It was nice to walk and not have a plan for a while.

I came back to relax, shower, and decompress from the insane heat. Then we headed out to meet Rachel at a restaurant by the water. You wouldn’t believe you were in Texas! Looked more like a marina in Florida or even back home. It was a really nice night and it ended with a movie in bed relaxing before the drive tomorrow.

DAY 5: Leander, TX to Marfa, TX

JULY 20

1264.5 mi to 1720.5 mi

IT’S MARFA DAY! I left in the morning for pastries and coffee (because, duh.) and then Marfa. I stopped a ton more today because the landscape started changing more and more often - getting closer to the desert instead of hills and farmland.

I also started a new audiobook called “The Island of Sea Women” by Lisa See and it’s beautiful. It keeps me going the ride down along with some old playlists to spice things up.

As I’m getting closer to Marfa, I can see an entire storm cell hovering over a city in the distance (because it’s so flat and you can see all the cities for miles) and I hope and pray it’s not right where I’m headed. Luckily it’s not, but it’s still incredible to see nature manifested like this. It’s sights like this this that keep reminding me how beautiful everything around us is, but it takes certain moments for us to really realize it. The rain coming down just looked like patchy brushstrokes and the light peeled through the breaks in the clouds.

I arrived and self-checked in for the night, grabbed some soup from Porter’s and headed to sit with my feet out the window to enjoy the breeze with my dinner for a while. I realized quickly that I was facing away from the sunset and that I was going to miss it if I didn’t take off and go chasing it! I cleaned up and got in the car to start searching. I drove the half mile to town, passed by Pure Joy, then towards City Hall, made a decision to turn left instead of right, and found my way to the more residential area on the outskirts until the moment I found that break in the trees over the fence where the sunset was just waiting. I drove a few feet and had to stop again, and again and again. It was one of those moments where I had to force myself to put the camera down so I could enjoy it for what it was. So soft and vast and gorgeous.

When I made it back, after a few more stops outside of town seeing horses in fences and flowers along the road, I started to set up my tripod and camp chair and got ready for a few astro shots which turned into 2 hours of experimenting. I couldn’t believe my luck seeing that I parked directly facing the Milky Way - which was HUGE tonight. It felt like I could stretch my arms out side and that would be the measure of how long it was. It was a giddy, child-like feeling when I hit the review button to see the first shot and staring right at those stars. Oh it was a special night.

DAY 6: Marfa, TX to Tempe, AZ

JULY 21

1720.5 mi to 2381.2 mi

I woke up shivering from the cold desert night, but then as soon as the sun started rising over my left shoulder it started warming right up. Something about mornings in the desert! I took a while gathering my things up and getting ready before I went for Jerusalem toast and drip coffee from Do Your Thing. I stopped by the James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor pop-ups and a couple more gorgeous vistas of the road stretching out before I made for El Paso. It was rough saying goodbye to Marfa again.

I knew today was going to be a long 9 hour drive, so I wanted to plan stops each 3 hours to pace myself. I didn’t need to be in Phoenix until the evening, so I let myself drive until dark.

Lunch was at District Coffee in a deserted El Paso, but it helped to get some work done while not sitting in my car. But after leaving El Paso, which I loved the drive out because of the drastic landscape changes and the proximity to Mexico, there were strong cross-winds hit and threats of dust storms. It was the most stressed I had been, keeping up with traffic that was used to these conditions and dealing with minor shakes from the wind. Not fun! But all part of the process.

I would stop the music or book every once in a while to be able to focus on the landscape and how beautiful and unique and everything that it was. It was special to remember those feelings.

The sunset coming in to Phoenix was blinding, but was also so exciting seeing orange sun and palm trees for the first time in a while.

I got to Thao’s and ate and sat and relaxed and talked and that carried us to 3am.

Today was a beautiful day! Everything about this, I expected new things to feel new and uncertain. The unexpectedness, I expected. And it’s exciting every night to look back on the day and how much I’ve accomplished, regardless of the day’s plans.

DAY 7: Tempe, AZ to Tempe, AZ

JULY 22

2381.2 mi to 2406.2 mi

Good morning Arizona! A late morning because of the late night. And a slow breakfast with talking that took us to 2pm and then attempting to write some of this. Thao and I had to separate in the apartment to actually get some work done ha, but I remembered some research I had been doing and how I had come across the Salt River horses. Thao encouraged me to take advantage of that idea instead of waiting for a full day tomorrow (thanks bud!) and I headed off around 5:15pm knowing that they’re most active around sunrise and sunset.

I drove towards the Phon D Sutton Rec Area which is inside Tonto National Forest. Once I started driving in, I knew I wouldn’t be able to recommend this place enough to anyone I knew. It’s a cheap all day parking pass ($12) and even though I just stayed for a few hours, it was worth the price for what I saw and felt and knowing that the proceeds go to help preservation efforts regardless.

I walked and ducked through tree branches along dust and cacti and yellow grass and rocks and the sounds of bugs and birds and a soft sky, knowing the sun was about to go down. I’ll spare the anticipation - I couldn’t find the horses. But I know they were around, and it’s something where you’re never guaranteed the experience of seeing them, but knowing they can exist peacefully in that space somewhere around me and everyone else was, reluctantly, enough for me. If that was my habitat, I would be more than thriving.

As the sun started lowering, and I was standing still for so many minutes on a somewhat small rocky patch hidden by the last few trees to duck under to get to the water, I was alone with the pretty deafening cicadas. I headed back to a little parking area I had seen coming in right near the entrance. Before I had found that rocky patch, I had been walking along the shore behind the low trees and grass, and I looked up to find a saguaro cactus maybe 10 ft tall standing on top of the little hill that protected the river bank.I kind of blindly followed my intuition and walked towards it which took me to the quietest empty parking lot right past the one I was parked in. I headed back along the top of the hills and it just quietly amazed me how easily both this patch of natural beauty and the parking lot I was walking alongside co-existed in this one place. And I was just a person exploring and inspecting the space around me, taking it in. Without these parks and protected areas of the world, how small would the world feel? Nature is so unpredictable and it can defy all of our understand sometimes. And I find myself constantly surprised by how wonderful it is to be around it all, being in the wilderness is always the time for me when I need to be quiet inside.

At my last stop by the water, I ended up walking more along the shoreline behind the grasses and couldn’t find the horses. I had met a man wading in the water kayak ramp who said you could see them a bit down the shore but I would have had to wade in about 4 ft deep. It was a bummer but I didn’t feel it was a possibility at that moment. It felt like if I put too much desperate feeling effort into finding them and not actually taking in the moments and everything else around me, it wouldn’t have been right. So I wandered more and stopped and watched the bright red and soft blue and pink sin set over the river as paddle boarders drifted by and the swallows started swarming in and out of the grass. I felt like I was in the Savannah honestly, how just peaceful and grand the mountains and water and wildlife around me felt. I forced my camera down and closed my eyes for a while and held on to that and knew in the back of my head I found a spot I really felt I would return to one day.

I headed back to Thao’s and we ate and talked and way too easily decided to watch Mamma Mia 2. It’s a special movie to me for a lot of reasons, and it is for Thao as well which made it so easy to talk and discuss and clarify for me why the parts of the movie and characters and songs really mean a lot to me. Again we couldn’t stop talking until she looked at her phone and what felt like maybe 1:30am was actually 4:32am. We laughed, reluctantly called it quits or the night, and headed to sleep.

Week 1, done! And seriously what a full week it’s been. Honestly it’s felt more like a month than just 7 days.

WEEK 1: Chattanooga, TN to Tempe, AZ

JULY 16 - 22

0 mi to 2406.2 mi