The Scenic In-Between

Tag: Musings

  • Reflections at the Not-So-End of My Road Trip

    Reflections at the Not-So-End of My Road Trip

    13,263 miles, 219 hours of driving, and a few flights later, I made it to Nashville. What a ride the past few months have been! Truly, one of the best experiences of my life. And the experience continues. Nashville was supposed to be the end of my road trip, the point at which I decide what to do with my life moving forward, but I’m not ready for that.

    My sister’s bachelorette is in New York in September, so I thought it would be fun to drive there from Nashville, stopping at a few national parks along the way. On the way back, I can visit friends, stop at more national parks, and spend a few weeks in Raleigh and Chattanooga, cities I’m considering moving to.

    However, I really do need to figure out my life after that. Initially, I thought I’d be using my time in Nashville to catch up with all the changes that happened in my industry over the past year. Have any of you heard of AI? Apparently, it’s coming for my job. All jokes aside, most of you know that I was pretty anti-AI before this trip. I’m still pretty anti-AI now, but I’ve accepted that it’s here to stay and that I need to learn how to use it so I’m not left behind.

    After starting to catch up with everything though, I think I might move on from software development entirely. It’s sad because I really loved coding, but I just don’t feel like doing it anymore. I don’t know what changed. Maybe my body associates coding with burnout. Maybe I just want to learn something new. Whatever the reason, I’m using the next few weeks to explore other options. I’m not completely ruling out software development yet, but it doesn’t hurt to see what else is out there. I’m open to suggestions.

    When I was in Chicago, I mentioned that I was learning Flutter and might start working on an app with Monica. I decided not to do that. The whole point of this road trip was learning how to rest and remove stress from my life and I realized that starting my own app would be incredibly stressful. I would need another road trip after building the app.

    In addition to thinking about options for my future, I’ve been reflecting on the past 6 months. I think that I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. I’m still the same person, but I’m more unapologetically me. I feel happier, freer, and more resilient. I’ve gotten to know myself and my interests better. And I’ve learned a ton of things along the way. I’ll leave you with some of them:

    1. I am very loved. Not because I’m nice to people or because I help as much as I can. I’m loved just because I am.
    2. I learned how to play pickleball.
    3. Time in nature will often cure sadness, anger, frustration, loneliness, grief, anxiety, <insert other negative emotion here>.
    4. I love the mountains.
    5. I’m not as out of shape as I thought I was.
    6. But I do need to do more cardio so I can breathe more easily on uphill hikes.
    7. I don’t like driving in the snow, but I’m able to do it.
    8. I learned how to play Sequence, Ruckus, and Qwirkle.
    9. Windshield wiper fluid and fluid lines can freeze and leave you waiting for snow to melt on your windshield in order to clean it.
    10. Canadian border officers think everyone in Texas owns a gun and is dumb enough to cross into Canada with it.
    11. I learned how to siphon wine into wine bottles
    12. I got better at letting others take care of me.
    13. It’s ok to not go on all the excursions and see all there is to see when you’re in another city or country.
    14. Cartilage piercings hurt a lot more than I thought they would.
    15. You should purchase certificates for your tires when you get new tires. You might need to replace a tire when you least expect it.
    16. I don’t have to earn God’s love.
    17. Most strangers are incredibly kind.
    18. The US is a breathtakingly beautiful country.
    19. Eating alone at a restaurant isn’t terrible.
    20. Nature can be beautiful and smell like fart at the same time.
    21. I can hold my pee for a lot longer than I thought I could when I’m driving in the middle of nowhere.
    22. It’s ok to be scared of bears, but I shouldn’t let that stop me from hiking.
    23. Starting conversations with strangers isn’t that bad.
    24. If I’m hiking in snow, I should always bring my spikes and poles.
    25. I think I’d like cycling.
    26. My great-grandparents on my mom’s side both grew up in very tiny towns.
    27. If I let God love me, He will.
    28. There are more than 600 types of roses.
    29. I learned how to attach a fender liner to my car.
    30. There is still a Blockbuster in existence.
    31. I don’t want to work full time. Does anyone know any handsome, single millionaires?
    32. Sequoia National Park is not a giant cluster of sequoias.
    33. I wasn’t made to wake up at 5 am.
    34. Rivers are so powerful that they can carve huge canyons like the Grand Canyon. I probably learned this in school, but the knowledge hits differently when you actually see the river and the canyon with your own eyes.
    35. I wasn’t made for very dry climates.
    36. The people at Taos Pueblo are not descendants of the ones who lived at Mesa Verde.
    37. I need more nature and sunshine in my life.
    38. It’s ok to not do anything productive in an entire day. It won’t affect my worth, it doesn’t make me lazy.
    39. I can still drive a manual car.
    40. I was made for spa days.
    41. I am able to balance an egg on a nail at the equator.
    42. You can’t fully trust Google Maps in Ecuador.
    43. If you’re driving on loose dirt or snow and your tires start spinning, swerve left and right to catch the bumps at an angle.
    44. At 15,000 ft, I can either breathe or walk, not both.
    45. I’m really lucky to have been able to go on this road trip.
    46. Learning to truly rest, without thinking productive thoughts, is going to be a lifelong struggle.
    47. In theory, I learned how to let go of control. The practice will be another lifelong struggle.
    48. Sometimes, the best decision is doing the thing society tells you not to do.
    49. I can take small steps to get me closer to the life I want.
    50. AI is actually really helpful (unfortunately).
  • Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks, CA

    Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks, CA

    Driving through the Pacific Northwest and California has been really cool. I’m driving along for hours, minding my own business, when all of a sudden, I turn a corner and there’s a huge mountain or mountain range in front of me. It’s a pretty awesome surprise. Sometimes, the mountains stay with me for the rest of the drive. Other times, they disappear when I turn another corner and I wonder if I’m going to see them again every time the highway turns a little.

    That is exactly what happened on my drive from Sacramento to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. I’m not sure which mountains I saw though. Maybe the Sierra Nevada? My Airbnb is in Shady Cove, an hour drive to each of the parks and then it’s another hour to various hikes in the parks. I was not looking forward to all that driving. Even though I had a restful weekend in Sacramento, I was exhausted when I arrived in Shady Cove. I keep trying to figure my body out because I’m sometimes exhausted when I think I should be feeling great and I sometimes feel energized when I think I should be feeling like crap. But there are too many variables, so I haven’t been able to figure it out. I’m at least trying to get better at listening to what my body needs each day.

    On Tuesday, I stayed at my Airbnb because I really couldn’t deal with driving and hiking. On Wednesday, I was still tired and my legs felt heavier than usual, but I felt better than on Tuesday, so I drove to Sequoia. I was kind of underwhelmed by the sequoias. This was because of my ignorance and not the sequoias fault at all. They are actually very impressive trees. I was underwhelmed because I thought that there would be entire trails where I’d be surrounded by massive sequoias the size of General Sherman, the largest tree on earth by volume. In all the pictures I had seen of people at Sequoia, they were surrounded by these massive trees. I realized on Wednesday that those pictures were all taken in a small area where a few sequoias grow close together. The entire park is not like that. It just so happens that everyone posts pictures of themselves in the same location at the park.

    In case you’re ignorant about sequoias like I was, I’m going to include pictures of different parts of the park in this post so you know what you’re getting into when you go. I started out on Wednesday by walking the Big Trees trail. The name of the trail didn’t help my ignorance. Don’t get me wrong, all the trees on the trail are big, but they are sequoias of different ages, heights, and widths, so they don’t all look as big as I expected them to be.This hike is around a meadow that is surrounded by sequoias. It was cool to learn that younger sequoias have more branches farther down their trunk to maximize the amount of sunlight they get. When they get older, they don’t need as many branches, so they only keep the ones at the top. I also learned that mature sequoias can survive fires and that sequoias actually depend on fires for reproduction.

    After the Big Trees trail, I walked up the 400 steps carved into Moro Rock. The view from the top was stunning. Then I walked through Crescent Meadow and saw Tharp’s log. Tharp found a hollow fallen sequoia many years ago and turned it into his cabin. I had seen in AllTrails reviews that some people had seen bears on this trail. Bear spray isn’t allowed in these parks because there are only black bears, no grizzlies, and black bears usually leave you alone if you get big and yell at them. I was excited at the possibility of seeing a bear on this trail. I’ve come a long way since deciding not to hike in Yellowstone 5 weeks ago because I was terrified of bears. So I was walking downhill on the uneven dirt path, not looking at the ground because I was looking for bears. You might see where this is going at this point. I stepped wrong, twisted my ankle, and fell. But I was fine. I got up, dusted myself off, and kept going on my way without any pain. I didn’t see bears on the trail, but people who got back to the trailhead a little after I did said they did see some.

    After that, I hiked the Congress Trail. This takes you by General Sherman and then to the two sequoia clusters where I’m guessing everyone takes the pictures they post. It’s called the Congress trail because one of the clusters is called the Senate and the other is called the House. And there’s also a tree called the President. This was my favorite trail, partly because I had adjusted my expectations by that point and partly because there are a lot of massive sequoias there and they were pretty cool.

    As I was walking through the Senate, two guys came running back from farther along the trail and asked if I’d seen a bear. Someone had told them there was a bear about 100 m from the Senate. We looked for a few minutes, but then I continued along the trail. When I got closer to the House, there was a group of people who had found the bears. There was a mama bear and her cub. At one point, the mama bear started walking in our direction and we all started moving back, but then she turned around so we stayed and watched. I’ve now officially faced my fear of bears. Eventually, the two guys came back down the path and were able to see the bears too, in case you were wondering.

    On Thursday, I went to Kings Canyon. I thought it was more beautiful than Sequoia. Walking through forests with massive trees is amazing, but we’ve already established that I’m a mountain person. I like big nature. Huge nature. Mountain sized nature, not sequoia sized nature. Driving through the canyon at Kings Canyon was spectacular. The views from the top were amazing, but I didn’t even have to see the views to be awed. The canyon walls I was driving next to were enough. And there are also sequoias in Kings Canyon if you prefer that, including General Grant, the second largest tree in the world by volume.

    As I was walking through Grant Grove, where General Grant is, I was thinking about how cool it is that I get to see sequoias, despite my initial disappointment, and how crazy it is that my road trip is almost over. I’ve been on the road for 4.5 months and in just 3 weeks, I get to Nashville, the last official stop on my road trip. Though now I’m thinking of adding another leg to my road trip at the end of the summer. We’ll see what happens…

    Remember a few paragraphs ago, when I said I twisted my ankle and fell? You thought I was fine. I thought I was fine. But during the short hikes I did in Kings Canyon through Zumwalt Meadow and Grant Grove, my ankle and my knee on the same leg started feeling achy. Luckily, I hadn’t planned to do as much walking that day as the day before because by the end of the day, my knee was even achier. I can walk and my knee feels more sore than painful, but I still decided to make today another rest day. This wasn’t a difficult decision because I wasn’t looking forward to another 4 hours of driving into and back from the parks, though there were a few more hikes I would have liked to do.

    Today I’ve been sitting on the couch, reading and watching the new season of Sweet Magnolias on Netflix. The dialogue this season is full of quotes that are exactly what I need to hear right now. I won’t spoil it for any of you who are planning to watch it. The thing that resonated with me the most was the idea of “being in the soup”. One of the characters mentioned how we see caterpillars and we see butterflies, but we don’t see the soup inside the chrysalis that is the caterpillar becoming the butterfly. This resonated because I’ve been listening to Ella Langley’s song Butterfly Season on repeat during my road trip. The song exactly describes my life right now, to the point of saying “Don’t even know her, that girl from last October”. October was when I realized that my life had to change. I think I’m towards the end of my soup stage, soon to be in my butterfly season.

    Tomorrow I’m driving to Joshua Tree National Park. I’ll only have 2 hours in the park on Sunday, but I figured it’s worth at least driving through it. Hopefully I’ll be able to use cruise control on the highway a lot tomorrow so my knee gets more rest. It didn’t like pressing the gas and brake on my winding mountain drive back from Kings Canyon yesterday.

    P.S. I just watched another episode and one of the characters said that he’s in the soup with wings sticking out. I think that’s a more accurate description of where I’m at.

  • Chicago, IL (Part III)

    Chicago, IL (Part III)

    My time in Chicago has finally come to an end. This is the final Chicago blog post. In a few hours, I’m driving to Milwaukee for a wedding. These last 2.5 weeks were full of walks and friends.

    Monica and I got into a routine where one of us would remind the other to go for a walk when the weather was nice or when we had been sitting on the couch for too long. Most walks were around Monica’s neighborhood, which has some nice grassy areas with lakes and bridges, but other times we drove to a reservoir or lake and went to a brewery after. I also got to make sourdough again! I revived Monica’s starter, Craig, and made a few loaves and naan bread. I really miss Petunia, my starter, so it’s been nice having fresh sourdough again.

    I finally started coding again. I’m currently learning a new programming language, so I’m going through a tutorial. It has been very humbling. I still enjoy coding, but I started feeling anxiety again when I started doing it. It had been 6 months since I last wrote any code and I thought my burnout would be mostly gone by now, but I was wrong. I’m definitely doing a lot better, but I still have some healing time ahead of me. I’m trying not to beat myself up over having to be patient with myself. It’s so easy to think of myself as weak, but I keep reminding myself of everything I’ve put my body through in the last few years and how it took care of me through it all. I realized that part of why my anxiety showed up again is that I was unconsciously giving myself a deadline to finish the tutorial. I didn’t know it, but I was pressuring myself to finish it quickly and get started on the app. Once I told myself that I can go through it as slowly as I want to, it got much better. Now I’m still coding, but I’m doing it in small chunks on days when I have a lot of time.

    Two weekends ago, Monica and I went to her brother Tom’s house to help cut down a tree. There was a big tree close to the house and they were worried it would eventually fall on the house. Monica’s parents, two of her brothers, and one brother in law came to help. The men worked on cutting down the tree and the women helped break down the branches so we could add them to the burn pile. There were a few close calls. At one point, us girls were at the kitchen window watching them cut down a branch when we saw it start falling in our direction. We all screamed and ran in different directions to take cover. Luckily, the branch was tied to Tom’s truck and he stepped on the gas immediately to pull the branch in a different direction. Only some of the smaller branches hit the roof, so all was well.

    Last week, we had wonderful weather. To celebrate, I took my car to the shop to get the front brakes replaced. Just kidding, that wasn’t my way of celebrating the weather, but I did need new brakes. The rear brakes were replaced in November, so those were fine. I found a shop 5 minutes from Monica’s place that has a van that will take you home and pick you up once your car is done. It was great.

    On Thursday, Monica and I actually took advantage of the weather by going to a Cubs game. Then we bought pizza and went to her brother Peter’s place to have dinner with his family. On Friday, I helped my friend Aixa move. She’s a friend who I met in Chicago through Monica and Therese. I’ve been to Chicago enough that now she’s my friend too. Then Aixa, Monica, Therese, and I had dinner together on Saturday. When I first arrived in Chicago, I started saying that we all had to get together and it finally happened on my last weekend here.

    I’ve been back at Therese’s place this week. Luci is so close to walking. I keep telling her she needs to walk before I leave, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. This week has been very relaxing. We’ve run errands, watched TV, and made brownies. Therese’s parents and her brother Nicho came over last night for dinner so they could say goodbye to me. As usual, being in Chicago has been wonderful. It feels like home. And no, Monica and Therese, that doesn’t mean I’m moving to Chicago. It’s still waaay too cold here.

  • Bali, Indonesia

    Bali, Indonesia

    We landed in Bali on a Monday evening. Amelinda’s sister, Stella, had hired a travel agency to help plan our trip, since there were so many of us. The travel agency picked us up in a bus and took us to dinner and then to our hotel. On the way there, they told us the plan for the next day. We were going on an excursion and they would pick us up at 2 am. 2 am?! I was convinced that I had heard that wrong. Unfortunately, I had heard it right. They were picking us up at 2 am because we were going to drive 3 hours to a mountain, where we’d get in jeeps and drive them up the mountain to see the sunrise. I like sunrises and jeeps sounded fun, but then I remembered the 2 am part and thought, “hell no”. I was still sleep deprived and still not feeling great, so I opted out of that excursion.

    Our hotel was very nice. They had lots of plants, in-room massages, a tsunami evacuation route, a tattoo shop, a pool, a restaurant, and housekeeping left towels on your bed in cute animal shapes. When I first entered my room on Monday night, one of the first things I saw was the elephant towel on my bed. I love elephants. They’re the best animal. That’s how I knew we were at a good hotel.

    At 1 am, I got a wake-up call. And then I got another wake-up call a few minutes later where I actually talked to a human and acknowledged the call. And then I got 3 more wake-up calls. I’m glad I never found out who scheduled those calls because I was feeling murderous by the time they stopped. Wake-up calls are one of my pet peeves. If I need to be up at a certain time, I will be up at that time. I don’t need someone waking me up 30 minutes before I have to be up when I haven’t asked them to wake me up in the first place. Luckily, I was able to get more sleep after that.

    I wasn’t the only one who opted out of the excursion on Tuesday. Therese, Patrick, and Luci stayed too, so we spent the morning at the pool, complained about the wake-up calls, got in-room massages, and then ventured out to look for lunch. We found a Vietnamese restaurant with a menu that was an inch thick. Most of the menu was pictures, but they still had so many options. As we went through it, we had to keep our fingers on different pages to remember the options we liked the most. The food was delicious!

    The group that went on the excursion had offered to pick us up for dinner. I was exhausted and was full from our Vietnamese lunch, so I stayed at the hotel, saw the sunset, and went to bed early. When I was at the beach waiting for the sun to set, a lady selling bracelets approached me. I tried to tell her that I didn’t have any money and didn’t need any bracelets, but she said that she knew I didn’t need bracelets, but that I should still buy some to help her out. Business hadn’t been good in the last few weeks. Because of the war in Iran, the larger airports in the Middle East are closed and Europeans who usually get to Bali through those airport haven’t been able to make it. This lady really knew what she was doing. She sat next to me in the sand and told me about her kids and finally convinced me to buy bracelets when I realized that she wasn’t going to leave and I was about to miss the sunset. At least I haggled.

    The next day I learned that I hadn’t missed much the day before. The jeep ride was pretty bumpy and the sky was overcast, so there wasn’t much of a sunrise. Dinner was seafood that you had to spend a lot of time taking apart in order to eat. I like crab and lobster, but they’re not worth the effort, in my opinion. I was happy with my decision to skip the 2 am wake-up the day before.

    On Wednesday, we had another excursion with a more reasonable pick-up time, so I went on that one. We went to the Garuda Wisnu Kencana (GWK) Cultural Park. It has many statues and performances that showcase Balinese culture. Most of Indonesia is Muslim, but most of Bali is Hindu. Most houses in Bali have temples at the front and people leave offerings for the gods every day. Every year, Bali has a Day of Silence to celebrate the Hindu New Year. The entire island shuts down on that day, even the airport. The airport in Bali is the only international airport that closes for 24 hours every year. This year, they celebrated it on March 19th, so we just missed it.

    After visiting GWK, we had lunch and then went back to the pool at the hotel. The food in Indonesia is interesting. It’s either extremely flavorful or very bland. When it’s flavorful it’s usually also spicy. Since I can’t tolerate spicy food, I mostly ate the bland food. There were times when only a small part of the food wasn’t spicy or was mild enough that I could eat it, so others in our group would kindly eat my spicy food and give me their mild food. By Wednesday night, we were all a little tired of local food, so after watching the sunset, we had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe.

    The next morning, most of our group flew back to Jakarta. Therese, Patrick, Luci, Josh, Nicho, and I were flying out in the evening. Since we had a whole day, I was originally planning to go to the Uluwatu Temple. It’s a temple on a cliff by the ocean and there are free-roaming monkeys. However, I still wasn’t feeling great and we had a surprise 12 hour layover in Brisbane the next day, so I decided to take it easy so I could explore Brisbane. I mostly napped until the evening.

    My time in Indonesia wasn’t what I expected it to be. I expected to have more energy to go out and explore, but my body decided otherwise. I learned that if I’m going to go 24 hours without sleeping, I need to give myself a few rest days before trying to do too much. Even though it wasn’t what I expected, I still had a great time. I was able to find ways to enjoy my days even on the days when I felt the worst. I got to Indonesia thinking that if I’m flying to the other side of the world, I need to see as much of the country as possible. But I learned that flying to the other side of the world to spend time in the pool with friends is also a great plan. Maximizing my time in a place doesn’t mean seeing all it has to offer. It means enjoying myself as much as possible, while listening to my body and taking into account its capacity. That’s exactly what I did.

  • Hamilton, ON

    Hamilton, ON

    My car made it to Canada! I did too, but I’ve been to Canada multiple times, so that’s less exciting than my car being here. The officer at the border seemed surprised that I had driven all the way from Texas. Luckily, he believed me when I told him I didn’t have any guns in the car and let me in. I was a bit offended that he would actually think that if I owned a gun, I’d be dumb enough to drive across the country and into Canada with one.

    I arrived on Wednesday evening and I’m staying with my sister, Nathalie, her roommate, Mari, and their 2 cats, Junie Bitch Jones and Fatso. The cats are actually named Juniper and Smoke, but those are my nicknames for them. Nathalie and Mari call Juniper June or Junie, so I started calling her Junie B Jones after the main character of some of my favorite books from when I was 7. June is kind of a bitch to me sometimes, which is how her middle name became that. Smoke is overweight and constantly rubs against my legs when I’m in the kitchen because he wants food, so he got the nickname Fatso. Yes, I’m fat-shaming a cat and I don’t feel bad about it.

    On Thursday, I had lunch with Chris and Dianne, more Runkeeper friends. Later that day, I helped Nathalie siphon wine she made into a couple of wine bottles and I also helped her taste test it. It was really good! That night, Nathalie made cookies and she, Mari, Shaye (Nathalie’s boyfriend), and I had a 3 hour conversation about morality, religion, and whether men and women can be friends while we had dinner. On some of the topics, it was them vs me and on others, I had one or two of them on my side. While we touched on some intense topics, I really enjoyed the conversation. I always enjoy having respectful conversations with people I disagree with, where we’re all just trying to understand how others think and where they’re coming from. The cookies and wine also helped.

    On Friday, I mostly stayed in bed. While Nathalie and Mari worked, I read Eat Pray Love. At lunch time, Nathalie made us lunch and said that I shouldn’t feel guilty about reading while she cooked for me after she had been working while I was reading. I felt a little guilty anyway. For the first 32 years of my life, I trained myself to believe that I always need to be productive and helpful. That I always need to give of myself. That if others are working, I should be helping them. That I always need to serve others and it’s not ok to let others serve me. This conditioning is even harder to break when it comes to my siblings. With other people, it’s easier to let them take care of me. But with my siblings, there’s additional training that happened over the last 32 years where I made myself believe that I always had to take care of them, be there for them, have my shit together, be a good example to them, and give them all the answers that I had to figure out on my own. Luckily, I have wonderful sisters who are forcing me to let them take care of me. These days, I think I learn more from them than they learn from me.

    On Saturday, we went to London for the day. No, not that London. The London in Ontario. I met up with more Runkeeper friends (yes, I have a lot of those). I had coffee with Besat and then lunch with Besat and Rodrigo. In the afternoon, Nathalie, Mari, and I spent time with Dusya, my godmother. We were going to ice skate, but it was an outdoor rink and it was cold and windy, so we opted to catch up at a coffee shop.

    Earlier this week, we declared that Sunday would be our “do nothing day”, so that’s what we’re doing. Technically, I did laundry and I’m writing this blog post, so I’m doing things, but mostly, I’m resting. Tomorrow I’m driving to Chicago and on Wednesday I’m flying to Indonesia for 10 days. I won’t take my laptop, so I likely won’t post again until I’m back in Chicago, but you can rest assured that I will be having a lot of fun.

    On this leg of the trip, I managed to exchange a potato for a hot chocolate maker and a magnet. I had a potato left over from when I went grocery shopping in Asheville, so we used it for dinner a few days ago. Mari has a hot chocolate maker. It’s a little stainless steel bowl that you put the chocolate and milk in and it heats it up and mixes everything together. I was so excited when I saw it because I make hot chocolate and other warm milk drinks all the time. Since Mari never uses it, she gave it to me. Nathalie and Mari also have a Hamilton magnet on their fridge. I buy a magnet everywhere I travel, but I wasn’t able to find one here, so they’re giving me theirs. All in all, I think I can safely say that I got the better end of the bargain.

    Today marks one month since I started my road trip. It was the shortest month of the year and I’m surprised by how much I managed to fit in and how much I’m already feeling myself change (in a good way). I can’t wait to see what the next 5 months of road tripping bring!

  • Asheville, NC

    Asheville, NC

    On Thursday evening, after I arrived in Asheville, my friends Grief and Loneliness decided to visit me. They visit me every few months and like showing up out of the blue, without calling first to let me know they’re on their way. It’s very rude, but I’m used to it by now. In the past, I would to try to kick them out when they visited. I’d tell them I didn’t want them here and that it didn’t make sense for them to be here. That never worked. I’ve learned that the best way to deal with them is to invite them in, without questioning why they’re here, so that’s what I did. We talked to one of my sisters for a few hours and then we sat on the couch together and cried for a while. When I got tired of crying, we watched TV and read a book before going to bed.

    I liked the schedule I followed in Savannah, so after a slow morning on Friday, I convinced Grief and Loneliness that we should go on a hike in the afternoon. We’re in Asheville, so we might as well enjoy the views. We drove about an hour out of Asheville towards the Blue Ridge Parkway, which has a lot of scenic overlooks and hikes along it. I barely saw any cars on the road. It was just me driving up the mountain. At some point, I lost cell service and I realized that I had forgotten to download the maps of my route and the trails I planned to do. If something happened to me or my car, nobody would know. I kept going anyway. I had driven this far already and I wasn’t going home without seeing some beautiful views.

    When I got to the Blue Ridge Parkway, the road was closed. Parts of it close during the winter. I parked on the side of the road, as others had done, and started walking up the mountain. I had driven this far already and I wasn’t going home without seeing some beautiful views. As I walked, I ran into a few people coming back down who said there was an overlook and a hike ahead, so I kept going. I am very glad that I did. As I walked, it smelled so good! I’m not an expert at tree scents, but Google says I was probably smelling Fraser Fir and Red Spruce trees. I wish I could have bottled up the scent of the trees. It was so wonderful combined with the crisp winter weather. After walking about a mile, I got to a hike known as the Devil’s Courthouse. It’s just 1 mi long, but it’s steep, with 282 ft of elevation gain. I’m out of shape and it was brutal, but it was so worth it.

    As I sat on the rocks looking at that view, I felt so happy and so much peace. All my problems seemed insignificant compared to the mountains and valleys before me. At some point, I realized that Grief and Loneliness were gone. I guess the hike was too steep for them and they went off to explore somewhere else. As I drove back down the mountain alone, in silence, with no music and the windows down, I felt so incredibly happy. I knew it was temporary and that my friends would show back up later that day, but I savored every moment. As expected, Grief and Loneliness did come back that evening. It felt strange to feel them while I was still on a high from the hike earlier in the day, but I didn’t question the strangeness and spent the evening relaxing with my two friends.

    On Saturday morning I had another slow morning. They were still around but were less demanding than the day before. In the afternoon, I drove to the River Arts District to check out the local artists. It was hard being there because there were so many beautiful things that I wanted to buy. But I’ve just started this road trip and it wouldn’t be a good idea to start accumulating pretty and breakable objects yet, so I contained myself.

    I spent another evening reading and watching shows with two my friends. At some point during the evening, Grief and Loneliness left, just as suddenly as they had arrived! Once they were gone, I was left feeling incredible joy. It was ridiculous how happy I felt. It made no sense. It was bliss. I can’t remember when the last time I felt this happy was. Is this what being truly rested feels like? Why didn’t anyone tell me that I could feel this way? I’ve been missing out all these years. If you don’t feel ridiculous joy, take this as your sign to blow up your life and go on a 6 month road trip. I know not everyone has the luxury of doing that, but I’m incredibly grateful that I do.

    Today, I’m still feeling the joy from last night. It was a rainy day, so I walked to a coffee shop in the morning to buy a chai latte (unfortunately, it wasn’t very good) and I spent the morning reading, while sipping my tea. Once the rain stopped, I walked downtown and checked out the boutiques. I had the same issue as yesterday where I wanted to buy everything, but I held back. I’m spending the evening on multiple phone calls, catching up with friends.

    Asheville has been an emotional rollercoaster, but it’s been wonderful. Tomorrow, I’m heading to Greensboro, NC. It’s not a long drive, so on the way, I’m going to drive another part of the Blue Ridge Parkway and stop for hikes. I’ll also visit cute towns in the area. I’m hoping for more amazing views.

    P.S. In case any of you are wondering if I’m depressed, the answer is no. The grief and loneliness I experience are a normal part of figuring out who I am and what I want. They’re a normal part of not having the life I’ve always wanted and thought I’d have by now. I used to think that feeling these things was wrong because I have a great life and have been very lucky. But in the past year, I’ve learned that having a great life can coexist with feeling grief. It doesn’t mean that my life sucks or that I think my problems are bigger than other people’s problems. It just is. I debated whether I should write about all this in this post. I ultimately decided to do so for a few reasons:

    1. I’ve been working on learning how to be vulnerable in the past year and this is a good way to practice that.
    2. I know that many people experience this and I want to normalize talking about it.
    3. This blog is as much for me as it is for all of you. I know that in a few years, when I look back at the blog, I’m going to be glad that I put this all in writing. I’m really proud of how much I’ve grown in the past year and how I’ve learned to handle my feelings. I needed to immortalize that so I’ll never forget it.
  • Why a Road Trip?

    Why a Road Trip?

    Many people have asked me what made me want to go on a cross-country road trip. The short answer is that I’ve always wanted to do one and I’m at point in life where I need to learn how to rest and figure out what I want (as opposed to what others tell me I should want) and this is a good way to do it. For the long answer, I need to back up a little.

    In early October 2025, I was laid off. It was rough. I loved working at Runkeeper. The company has been part of my life for the past 10 years. When I was in college, I did a 6 month co-op there. After graduating, I worked there full time for 3 years. And after a few years at Amazon, I went back to Runkeeper and had been there for 3 years when the layoffs happened. It really felt like the end of an era.

    • The floor is lava

    I gave myself a week off before looking for a new job, but when I started looking again, the idea of going back to work gave me anxiety. I was also extremely fatigued and realized that I’ve been burned out for years. Some of you might be thinking, “Priscilla, how are you burned out? Your work life balance was great, you didn’t work on Fridays, and you worked from home, which allowed you to work from anywhere in the world and do laundry during your work day.” The answer to your very logical question is that Runkeeper wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I never learned how to rest. My whole life, I’ve made productivity a big part of my identity and self-worth, which means that even my rest had to be “earned” and had to be “productive”. When I realized that, I decided to take the rest of 2025 off to learn how to truly rest and hopefully put it into practice.

    In November, I drove to the Smoky Mountains and spent a week there with a friend. I drove because we were in the middle of a government shutdown and I didn’t want to deal with airports. It’s a 15 hour drive that I split into 2 days. On the second day, when I was somewhere in Tennessee, I found myself thinking that it would have been so much faster to fly. And I realized that that is exactly why it was good that I drove. Driving forced me to slow down, to take a breath, and just be. Yes, I had audiobooks and podcast episodes queued for the drive, but when you’re on the road for so long, you eventually get tired of listening to things and need silence. It was in that silence, on a highway in Tennessee lined with orange trees, that I realized that sitting in a car for many hours with nothing to do and learning to enjoy it was exactly what I needed.

    While I was at the Smokies, that thought stayed with me. I’ve been wanting to do a cross-country road trip for a long time, but never seriously considered it because it would mean taking a few weeks off of work and finding someone who is also willing to take a few weeks off to do it with me. But as I sat on the porch of our cabin, I realized that I don’t need anyone to do it with me. I know people all over the US and Canada. I could visit all those people and stop at a few other cities and national parks along the way. That way, I wouldn’t be alone for the entire trip, but I would have enough alone time to recharge my introvert social battery. And so the road trip was born.

    The idea of going on a road trip alone and spending most of the year unemployed is slightly terrifying. But it’s also very exciting. It’s something that Priscilla from 6 months ago would never have done and I’m proud of myself for stepping out of my comfort zone. I don’t know what will come out of this road trip or who I’ll be at the end of it. Some of my friends joke that I’ll come back with blue hair, tattoos, and a nose ring. That is extremely unlikely, but I do hope that I’ll come back more me. That I will have grown into myself and by growing into myself, expand out of myself, if that makes any sense. I have all my stops planned out, but I also have no expectations and am open to veering from the plan. So here’s to having fun, truly resting, and enjoying the views along the way. Thank you for coming on this road trip with me!