The Road Trip

Ever since I got my driver's license, I've had this crazy dream to drive north to Alaska. Every summer I've found an excuse not to go.

Every summer, that is, until this one.

I'm not sure how the dream originated. I didn't even know much about Alaska. But the dream sealed itself in my mind and stuck like none other. It was almost innate, like the physical attraction to a woman. Alaska lured me with her mountains, her coasts, and that long, endless road that stretched over an unexplored region.

It was where civilization was secondary to nature. It would become my lifetime goal to drive to the Last Frontier, and anyone that knew me knew about my dream.

Before the trip, my life consisted of pushing carts at The Home Depot and seeing my malevolent girlfriend on weekends, who kept my finer parts tightly sealed in a mason jar. I was living a dreary, dreamless existence on a one-way road to misery and banality.

Chris McCandless, the protagonist in Jon Krakauer's nonfiction narrative "Into the Wild," was an idealistic young man who hitchhiked and died in Alaska. He reminded me that it's never too late to change.

In a diary entry found after his death he said, "So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality, nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future."

For years I had been trying to pull off the trek. Relationships, car troubles, and the lack of anyone crazy enough to go with me prevented the roadie from happening. But it was I, conditioned to a life that I didn't really want to be living, who was responsible for putting it off year after year.

I asked my friend Josh to go. He had a girlfriend. He was comfortable with life. Another bump in the road it seemed.

"We'll go next year," he said to me.

"Screw next year," I thought. "It's never going to happen unless I make it happen."

Time was running out and I had no one to go with me. But I was resolute. McCandless's words had struck a chord in me. I quit my job and dropkicked the girlfriend out of my life. It was time to start living again. It was time to drive.

I asked my buddy Paul if he'd like to join me on my Alaskan adventure. He, as enthusiastic as I, thereafter quit his job and put his relationship on hold. He was in.

Our destination was Coldfoot, Alaska, situated 60 miles north of the Artic Circle and 4,500 miles away from home.

Our funds were few so we decided to sleep and eat in the car. For six straight days we ate beef jerky and nuts, and drank Dr. Pepper, while living and sleeping in our own filth like hogs in a sty.

It was every bit as wonderful as it sounds.

Through South Dakota we saw the badlands where long, rocky, cone-shaped fingers jut from the Earth's palm. At Mount Rushmore, we saw four demigods sculpted in granite.

In Montana, we drove through a commercialized zoo at Yellowstone and in Alberta our windshield was decorated with butterfly splatter. Up in British Columbia our drive was halted by a horde of roaming bison, and we were given the evil eye from a black bear who didn't welcome the flashes of our cameras.

In the Yukon, a grizzly bear stubbornly strolled past our car next to a lake that gleamed a blue clearer than the sky itself.

All the while, our tires spun against midnight lanes as we endlessly battled our only enemy: fatigue. Our wits were dimmed, our asses were numb, but our hearts were resolute and our eyes never left the goal.

In Alaska, we saw mountains. McKinley, with its towering tip, soared above all else. We climbed peaks across the Brooks Range, we encountered bears that had never before seen a human and we flirted with death at every turn within the beautifully harsh Alaskan wilderness. We had never felt more alive.

I was McCandless, I was Kerouac, I was living life to its fullest for the first time in my life. I was happy, happier than I've ever been.

When you're experiencing something great it's hard to recognize that you're experiencing greatness. It's almost impossible. Months, years go by and the experience finally has time to fossilize itself into your memory so you can finally say "wow, that was an amazing day."

For Paul and me it was different. We knew that this was the best thing that ever happened to us. It was a struggle, a test, but it was my dream come true. This summer, like a great mountain, will forever stand as the happy pinnacle of my life.

If there's anything I've learned in my 22 years, it's that too many people live within unhappy circumstances and are afraid to do anything about it. They're afraid to break up with their girlfriend or boyfriend because they fear the pain and the difficulty of finding another mate. People get stuck in jobs that make them depressed or they become glued to their television sets, simultaneously forgetting about their so-called foolish and unattainable goals.

My Alaskan adventure has taught me to always remember who you want to be, and to crush whatever impediments lay in the way of becoming that person. Tomorrow you could be 40, regretting the things you didn't do, which only could have been done in this prime season of your life.

From one dreamer to another, go find your Alaska no matter how foolish or how far away it may seem. Life isn't a math formula; it's a highway.