Gone Traveling
November 27, 2017
From the beaches of the East Coast to the grasslands of the Midwest, and from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast, the United States has some of the most diverse geography in the world. This summer, Bryant Ricks (‘18) experienced the majority of it in a cross country road trip with three of his best friends.
Ricks and friends
Ricks’s travelling companions were recent Forge graduates Mark Roberts (‘17) and Connor Walls (‘17), as well as a Mountain View graduate, Danny Bannon (‘17).
“Pretty much, it was a twenty-day all intensive adventure, an exploration of the United States,” Ricks said about the trip, which funnily enough, started off as a joke. “Mark’s family is moving to San Diego, so they got a house there. Jokingly, I was like ‘we should take a road trip to see your house in San Diego.’ And then we did,” Ricks said.
After looking up the best places to see in the US, and narrowing them down until they had a set route, the four friends left home. The Roberts family house in San Diego served as a sort of middle point of the trip, as the group hit national parks, well-known monuments, major cities, and a baseball game among other things on the way there. Among these were the Gateway Arch, (MO), the Badlands (SD), Yellowstone (WY), Upper Angora Lake (CA) , and Yosemite (CA) to name a few.
“Pretty much, it was a twenty-day all intensive adventure, an exploration of the United States.” — Bryant Ricks
“We spent a lot of time camping, or just being dirty, so whenever we got to civilization again it was nice to just shower and relax,” Ricks said about stopping in Salt Lake City, Utah. “We all showered and then got In-n-Out for the first time,” he recalled.
The next day, the group got another break from camping when they stopped to couch-surf in South Lake Tahoe, Nevada for the night.
“Couchsurfing is a free app. It’s kind of like a network and if you join the app you can host people who are travelling,” Ricks explained. “So we spent the night with this guy and at first it was kind of weird because none of us knew him, but it ended up being cool because we got to talk to him about how he had traveled to all these different places with no money and just made the most of everything.” This is exactly what Ricks and his friends were trying to do, and overall, he described his first time couch-surfing as “really awesome.”
Ricks and his friends hiking in Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park.
Ricks and his friends traded the redwoods and waterfalls of Yosemite and Upper Angora Lake for the hustle and bustle of city life as they entered San Francisco the next day.
“Connor’s aunt owned an apartment complex in San Francisco, and they gave us the penthouse for a couple days. It was amazing,” Ricks said. “We stayed there for a couple days and went out and toured the city. The night after that was the Fourth of July, so we got to see the fireworks.”
They finally reached the Roberts’ house in San Diego after taking Pacific Highway down the coast, stopping a couple times for beaches and burgers.
“The beaches in San Diego were amazing. The water was cold, the sun was hot, it was great,” Ricks said. After a few days of relaxation in the city, the four friends finally started to make their way back to Virginia.
Not wanting to take the same route, they visited the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, Moab, Arches National Park, the Great Sand Dunes, Colorado Springs, and Paradise Cove, before their last stop in St. Louis, Missouri.
“At that point, we just decided that we wanted to go home, because it had been so long. So we all got in the car and drove the thirteen hours home straight through,” Ricks said.
“Going across the country for me, a minor, with some of your friends and no supervision, it sounds so crazy.”
— Bryant Ricks
“The most challenging part was honestly convincing each other and our parents that we were actually going to do this. Going across the country for me, a minor, with some of your friends and no supervision, it sounds so crazy,” Ricks said. “But after understanding that we were all mature enough to make safe responsible decisions, my mom actually went for it. She knew it would be a great experience for me.”
Ricks considers himself a changed person since returning from this trip. He has discovered that he has a huge passion for travelling, and is considering taking a gap year after graduation to visit Machu Picchu and maybe Europe. He’s also planning a winter break trip to the Florida Keys with some of his friends in hopes to continue to explore his new passion.
Check out Bryant’s blog about his trip with this QR code or link!
