Albany Drake returns with her biggest quest yet.

My goodness! It's been months since I've graced these halls. Well, for good reason...I haven't been anywhere! Well actually, that technically isn't true. I have been places. I have been on vacation with friends and family, but there are just some stories that must remain private. Some memories, some moments, some experiences are meant to only remain with those whom you shared them with, and so my past few months have been filled with moments like those. Memories, moments, times, that belong just to those I spent them with. But now...well now is a different story. It's time for me to get back out there.
There being the vast unknown. The mysteries, joys, and spontaneous experiences that only travelers know and can explain. The joys along the way. The unexpected cup of coffee that rocks your world. The overrated tourist trap that makes you shrug. The exhausting yet exhilarating trail up a new mountain. It is there that I must return. I must return to the open land. My feet are aching, my fingers itching to be back among the travelers.

And so outward and onward I go.

So after months and months of unreported traveling, I had to think long and hard about where I wanted to go for my ultimate summer vacation. Of course, I needed something epic to break my fast. Something so intense, something so remarkable that it would make up for long hiatus. I needed a trip to literally rock my world.

So the destinations beginning rolling around in my mind. Of course, Europe came up. Europe somehow seems to always come up. There's just too much to do there. I toyed around with ideas of the Middle East. There's a cruise that goes to Antarctica that I seriously wanted to go on, but it isn't until January, and my vacation time slot is the end of July. Ok then I thought what about the Far East! But no...that just wasn't cutting it either. I wanted company and there are only a few of my friends that I could talk into braving that mesmerizing world, so I turned to something closer to home.

After my trip to the Pacific Northwest last year, I learned that I absolutely adore road trips. I enjoy the scenery. I enjoy the time I get with my friends talking. I enjoy the pace. I enjoy the vast changes.

I turned my back to the Atlantic, and I looked West, and I made a shocking mental note. I have never been to California which seems criminal. I decided to remedy this charge on my case. My brain functioned as follows:
First, I decided to go to California.
Second, I decided that I was going to drive to California...from North Carolina. All 2,446 miles there and all 2,446 miles back. Yep! So in order to get over my dry patch, I am going to drive straight into the desert. The Sonoran Desert that is. Of course, there is no way, I am going to just drive to California. There is so much to see and do along the way. Like eat ribs in Memphis, eat a 72oz steak in Texas, drive a tom car in Phoenix, play black jack in Vegas, and brave the Grand Canyon.
How on God's beautiful green Earth could I bypass all of these monumental experiences??? Its' just unfathomable, no??

So, I'm not just going on a road trip. I am going on an epic road trip. I am not just driving. I am tasting and experiencing the great land of the United States. I am going to fulfill one of my life long dreams of crossing my great nation.

And it all starts this week.

I am returning to travel with my biggest quest yet, crisscrossing the country in only three weeks.

I'm cranking up my ipod. California Dreaming seems like a good selection to me...
Join me as I tour the nation and experience a whole new side of it - the open road.

~Albany Drake








- my tom car for the Sonoran! Yes, I'm driving this.