Road Trip 2007 Ends

End of Road Trip ( 7:05 AM, Arizona Time - 08/23/07 )

I started thinking about it on my drive in. It just sort of hit me. Whether I like it or not, the Summer of Scott, Road Trip 2007 is over. This drive into Phoenix would be the last time I am entering the city from the road, and henceforth, any trips I take will be away from here, for this is my new hometown.

The Road Trip sub-title was “Quitting work, selling my place, and going on the road for an extended journey with a final destination yet to be determined”. With the final destination now determined, it’s time to acquire a place and find work. I am now going to start thinking about the rest of my new life. It’s time to stop living in the moment and start planning for the future…things that until now I had eschewed. The issues of the real world are upon me again…Aaaaargh!

That's not to say I am done with my travels or adventures (or the blog). I have a few more things planned, including a sort of “grand finale” trip to Bryce Canyon. A few weeks from now, TP, Mr. T and Beana will be tripping with me, and we will all be piling into a borrowed RV for the adventure. We’ll probably drag Pre along for some twisty day trips that the RV can’t handle. It’ll be about a 5 day trip, camping out and is scheduled around the weekend of Sept. 22.

Between now and then, I will be flying back to NJ to sort through my storage space, acquire some form of spacious transportation, and possibly with Mr. T’s help, do a sprint home to Arizona. (Hey, I’m now a Zoner!) Then, in early November, the Murphy men (me, bro and buz) are going to the Murphy birthplace - Ireland. My crew’s annual golf outing is scheduled for the middle of October in Myrtle Beach. I began checking out some flights, but with so much already scheduled and a whole new life to start, I am feeling overwhelmed. I’m gonna need to make a decision soon as to whether this trip is the right thing for me now, but after a few more days of relaxation, I suspect I’ll come to my senses and book the flights. I’ll add blog entries of these trips.

I started the blog with entries about quitting work, selling my condo, and all the thoughts and tasks that went into making the actual Road Trip a reality. I’ll end the blog similarly, with sporadic entries over the next few months on topics like renting an apartment, becoming useful to society again, and perhaps the purchase of a new house in the future (sis has put in an order for a vacation friendly place with 3 bedrooms and a pool – if the housing market continues to crumble, I may be able to accommodate).

I will also be adding some Road Trip blog addendii. There are a lot of numbers, stats and lists that I need to accumulate and calculate such as total miles hiked, weight gained, just how much money this lark cost me and where it was spent, and any other curiosities I come up with. I am going to spend some time getting the actual trip map pulled together, perhaps in a couple of forms. I have recorded it on MS Maps and Trips in 4 parts...hopefully I can find a way to unify it and post it. I also need to get one big freaking map of the US, plot it out, and perhaps frame it for some future garage wall. Unfortunately, I should also do some puff pieces on things like lessons learned, how I’ve changed and what this has meant to me; for these I think it best to take advantage of the perspective only time can provide.

So while the Road Trip itself may have come to an end, I still need to wrap up the loose ends. One of the loose ends was my trip from Santa Fe into Phoenix. Here’s the Blogwithinablog:

___________________________

The Trip Home – Days 137 - 140

I started thinking about it on my drive in. It just sort of hit me. “I’m on my final drive of “Road Trip - 2007”. I left Santa Fe, NM early on Wednesday with a long 500+ miles through the desert to my day end destination: the Treasons. 12 days straight on the road with not a familiar face the whole way. It was time to be done with this leg and a straight shot on the interstates was planned. But, when the “final drive” realization set in half way, I had to pull over.

It just wouldn’t be right to have spent all trip long avoiding interstates as much as possible, only to spend the final leg wrong. I pulled out the maps and got off highway to take a more scenic route in. Fortunately, I was close to a drive I’d done before, and was pleased to do again (you can only enter Phoenix so many ways without repeating). And the familiar drive would give me time to relish the last leg.

Quickly, I was back in the groove, and I spent the next four hours experiencing the changing scenery through hard to pronounce places like Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, Sierra Ancha, Mazatzal Mountains and Fort McDowell Mohave-Apache Indian Reservation. I first put “The Who” on the IPod, and later selected the playlist of “Most Played Songs”. I was totally reminiscing. I even called mom, a near daily ritual during the trip, for one last call (alas, I only got the answering machine). It was a great drive and fitting end to the trip!

And then I arrived at the Treason’s. Wow! Such a disorienting mix of feelings of relief, arrival, friendship, completion, anticipation, exhaustion and much more. It’s a lot to comprehend, and I have spent the past few days catching up with the Treason’s as well as myself. It’s good, nay great, to be home.
______________

So there you have it.

I am done counting the days! It was 4 and a half months; 140 days; a nice round 20 weeks. As you can tell from the odometers, I put on 24,207 miles on Pre since I started this trip. That's not the total mileage, as there were other vehicles and modes of transportation involved, but that's another stat that will be in an upcoming page.

I’m finally going to get a chance to read this blog thing I created. I figure it’ll be pretty good bathroom reading over the next few weeks. I hope I like it; but, like many of you, I'll probably be mad at myself for writing such long boring posts. The pictures will be good. I need to go through all the pictures and see what I want to print off and perhaps some to blow up and/or frame (again for the future garage).

A few questions and answers: So is this the end? In a sense yes it is. And here's the (sorry!) cliché: it’s also the beginning. Did I achieve what I set out to achieve? YES. Heck, I would have been fine if I just quit my job. But what an adventure. I know I will look back on this trip not just as a major transition period of my life, but also as one of the happiest times of my life.

Thanks to all of you who have aided and abetted in the journey, or simply lived vicariously through me, which helped keep me motivated. I hope you’ve enjoyed the Road Trip. I know I did! - RT