road trip: the greatest college tradition of all time

There is a thing called a road trip. The road trip is genius. The road trip is fun. The road trip is frustrating in its length but the road trip is also divine in its purpose. The road trip is spontaneous. The road trip is a gift.

But for many many years the road trip has been used for one definitive resolution: self-discovery. The road trip may not always begin with this purpose in mind, but in the end there is always a lesson learned. Lets look at a few examples:

Aw yes, let us begin with the most immortalized road trip ever taken. The one and only road trip in which all other road trips will forever be compared to. The road trip that will forever teach other road trippers that there is just no place like a road trip. The Wizard of Oz. Young Dorothy is found in a mystical land with one solitary road: the yellow brick one. She decides to follow and along her road trip: embraces unlikely friends (including my favorite, the cowardly lion), talks to trees, gets attacked by flying monkeys (no thank you!), and kills the scary witch. And in the end is rewarded the gift of returning to her farmland where she phrases the classic line, "There's no place like home." But Dorothy's journey along the yellow brick road is not just a dream; it is symbolic of Dorothy's transformation into womanhood. She found home and herself.

Next, there is Richard Farnsworth in The Straight Story (a Shipley family favorite): a man so old and so unforgiving of past quarrels with his brother that this realization quickly presses him into embarking on the road trip of his life.

In pursuit of his estranged brother, Richard travels across multiple state borders with one purpose in mind: to forgive. But along his road trip, he discovers the beauty of the world, the serenity of peace, and even inspires strangers along the way to re-evaluate their lives for the better. In the end, he doesn't even need to speak to his brother for both of them to know they've forgiven each other; the fact that he took the road trip in the first place was enough. He found complacency and himself.Let us not forget Britney Spears' road trip in the quickly forgotten film Crossroads. Traveling with her two best friends and a potential ex-murderer, she goes cross-country in hopes of re-uniting with the mother who left her at childbirth...only to discover her mother never wanted her in the first place. Ouch! But her road trip led to more self-discovery as she ends up in L.A. and (gasp!) gets famous. She found herself...I think.

And then there's my favorite road trip from the film Elizabethtown.

Orlando Bloom portrays a man on the brinks of suicidal action, when just in time his sister calls with the news that their father has passed away in the city Elizabethtown. After retrieving his ashes, Orlando sets out on a healing road trip (inspired by his girlfriend Kirsten Dunst of whom makes him an awesome scrap-book map thing) cross country (with the ashes) to all the sites he and his father said they would visit but didn't because life got in the way. He finds harmony reflecting on his fathers life during his road trip, and conclusively finds himself.

And then there's the road trip I went on last week. My friends Meghan, Scott Hadley (who doesn't go by just Scott...you have to call him both...unless you forget), and I left Rexburg at 1 pm on Saturday, April 11 and headed for Salinas, California to stay at my house for a few days. Needless to say we were on the road for a good 14 hours, most of it in darkness.While traveling we alternated nap times, played games, and listened to music like there was no tomorrow. Good thing we could usually all agree on what to listen to, as the music is the soundtrack of the road trip. Once we got to my house we had Easter Sunday with my family and just relaxed. We went to the beach in Seaside to see the ocean!I took this picture of the sun and am quite proud of it. It's awesome.

Monday was spent in Monterey at the Aquarium. That night we drove the six hours to L.A. to stay with the Briney twins. But what would a road trip be without getting lost at one point or another? Not a road trip. So of course, we got lost about 30 miles off route in L.A. but eventually found our way. Tuesday was spent all day at Six Flags Magic Mountain. We didn't take any cameras because we definitely would have lost them on a ride like this. And thus at the end of that day the road trip was coming to a close. After a short nights sleep to Wednesday morning the trek back to Idaho was well on its way. But we decided we were gonna have fun and be completely spontaneous. At the border of Nevada and California there is this roller coaster in the middle of nowhere. Yes, we went on it. Yes, it was awesome.

Then we went through the Vegas strip (for my first time)...and....well....I dunno. But after that we realized it was already 2 in the afternoon...and we still had 12 hours ahead of us. So we dropped the spontaneity and hit the dust like crazy. Needless to say we didn't get to Rexburg until 4 am and by that time we was CRAZY.

But the road trip was awesome. And you know what? I learned a few things along the way. I learned a few new Coldplay songs, that this country is beautiful, and you know you have great friends when you can be in the car for pretty much 4 days straight and never get sick of each other. But I also discovered that the road trip didn't have any major self-discovery moments for me. Probably because I already knew there was no place like home, I've forgiven my brothers of any past bruises, my mom didn't leave me at birth, and I'm not suicidal; so perhaps my lesson learned is that I'm thankful for that.