Last week, three of my friends and I went on a roadtrip to San Diego, California. Although the trip took about 30 hours each way to drive, it was extremely rewarding to see America first-hand. While flying would have been much faster, I would not have been able to see the sites that I saw. During the drive to California, we drove through Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and finally California. On the way home, we added New Mexico to our route. From the flat land of Nebraska to the Rocky Mountains, the scenery and climate was constantly changing. It made me realize just how intense traveling across the country would have been for fur traders, explorers, and settlers. Part of our trip home was even spent along side the Santa Fe Trail! I blew my mind that what took us 30 hours to drive would have taken settlers months to travel.
Our eyes were truly opened as we experienced some extreme changes in weather. What started out as a beautiful drive soon turned into treacherous conditions that caused us to pull off the road. While in Utah as we began ascending the mountains, in the course of 15 minutes the weather went from sunny and 50 degrees to hail and snow, bring with it white-out conditions. We were forced to drive at ridiculously slow speeds and even spent an hour in stand-still traffic due to a car accident. As we sat in the car complaining about how crappy the weather was and how all we wanted to do was sit on the beach in California, I realized just how lucky we were to be traveling in a car in the 21st century.
Once in California, the Spanish influence was extremely evident. Everything from the city and street names to the food and homes were influenced by Spanish culture that would have initially been brought from Spanish fur traders and explorers in the 1800s. Since this was my first trip to the West Coast - as dorky as this may be - I'm actually really glad it took place during this class. It made me appreciate the trip so much more.
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