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Solo Travel Pt.1

"And if you can't find a loyal companion,
  travel alone..."

I slept in late. I didn't want to get up. I couldn't stay there any longer and as if to confirm it my aunt started the conversation with "I don't want to kick you out, but when --" But I cut her off. "I'm leaving today." All the stuff was packed in the car. After a year of sleeping on the floor on an air mattress, having my car stolen, recovered and broken into again, learning photography and co-directing a documentary, the time had finally come to leave. The next day, after staying one final night in Florida at my friend's apartment in Tampa, the inherent adventure of solo travel would take me over, I would wake up early the next day, ready to travel across the country, ready for a journey with an uncertain destinations. I was uncertain and ready. I put on my Princeton T-shirt to remind myself of what I had accomplished and gassed up the car and set off.


The drive was exciting. I'd never been to Louisiana, my first stop and I was fascinated by the trees and the large amount of oil industry stuff as I drove in. My friends lived in Baton Rouge so I drove there and checked out their house. An engineer and a teacher, I would visit them again a year later for Mardi Gras, the last one before Katrina hit. I remember not being tired but full of that adventurous air that invades you when you're somewhere new for the first time. No memories to compare it with, nothing familiar. All feels new. The light looks glorious even when it hits the kitchen counter and my breakfast.




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