Personal/Public

I love driving places, and often find that my mind is most at ease when I'm alone driving somewhere. For the past four summers I have a done a fifteen hour car drive out to Pennsylvania, a majority of the time by myself. For the most part I have taken the exact same route each time I make this drive. Along my drive there are many points that I feel have important meaning to me, whereas another driver would just think its part of the route.

The drive is a rather long and pretty boring drive a majority of the time. You have Illinois with the short excitement of Chicago, unless you are driving through there when there is traffic, then you'll unfortunately be sitting there for about an hour or so. Indiana and Ohio are pretty much the same, flat, boring, and their tollways are ridiculous. However the best part of the drive has to be when I would finally reach Pennsylvania. The environment pretty much instantly changes from flat boringness to lush hills and mountains. Besides this being the best and most exciting part of the road trip out it also is a spot where I always think about my Grandmother. Before my drive out there in 2010 I had stopped at my Grandmas house in Iowa because things were not going so well, and I wanted to say "goodbye" to her before I left for my summer job. My grandma always loved sunsets or sunrises especially when they faded from pinks, purples, oranges. Well on this particular drive I reached that awesome part of my drive right as the sun was rising, with all these beautiful colors that I knew my Grandma would love. This was particularly special moment to me because I pretty much knew that earlier when I said "goodbye" to my grandma that it was the last time, and she did end up dying a week later and I flew to Iowa for the funeral, but whenever I drive this route I always think about my Grandma when I'm entering Pennsylvania because of that beautiful sunset and the moment that was shared at this location.

coordinates: 41.171043,-79.719938