Rewind three weeks: I had just found out that my previous spring break plans had fallen through when my indefatigable visionary of a friend Keith Williams bursts into my room with a sheen in his eye. He and two other friends, Matthew Maimone and Thomas West, were thinking about going on a road trip down to Florida over spring break, couch-hopping at friends' places along the way. Fast forward two weeks, and we'd added a three-concert tour, TV and newspaper advertisements, and a stop at Disney World. The spring break of legends, to be sure.
Back to the present: after some expected delays, our quadrumvirate had grabbed our last meal from the venerable Juilliard cafeteria, beaten Matt's car's trunk in a fierce game of Tetris, taken an obligatory first selfie, and set off onto the long road, our first stop: Chattanooga, Tennessee. Thirteen hours away.
Keith warned us from the start about the nature of long road trips (of which he is a grizzled veteran), hours one thru six are fine and dandy, but once hour seven hits, everything goes downhill. Hour ten is when everyone gets quiet, hour eleven is when everyone feels like they need a shower, and hour twelve is when you can't stop staring at the clock. The first hours were spent catching up, hearing about Thomas' RUF retreat from the weekend before, and planning how we intended to keep our sanity. To keep ourselves from killing each other, and to help regularly mark time intervals, we decided that we would read from Psalms every thirty minutes. Sanity was retained, and order was preserved. Amongst other frivolities, we kept ourselves busy with "The Truth Game", which actually doesn't seem like much of a game at all, but just asking each other questions in which the ask-ee is obligated to answer truthfully. Go figure. By noon we had officially passed into "The South" as we made our way into West Virginia. Our patient stomachs were rewarded with a prize beyond measure: an honest-to-goodness, authentically Southern Chick-Fil-A. Not only that, but it was Keith's first time eating at the blessed restaurant. We dallied little, and in a few minutes were back on the highway.
The afternoon passed quickly as we continued making our way West and South. Snow (which had completed blanketed New York the night before) was nowhere to be seen, the air was fresh and pure, and the rollings hills and scenic views were extraordinarily refreshing after months of urban jungle. Keith put on Beethoven Op. 127 and Op. 133, allowing Thomas to experience his first Beethoven string quartets, Matthew shared an especially powerful Tim Keller sermon, and Thomas instigated a modified round of The Truth Game in which we all described what we most admired in each other's character. The sun was setting as we pulled in for our third and final gas station stop, a mere three hours away from our destination. Looking onward towards our goal, we decided to skip a formal dinner and sustain ourselves on PB&J sandwiches made by Matthew's gracious mother so that we could power through and get the Chattanooga ASAP. An offer by Thomas' mom to have a home-cooked dinner ready when we arrived spurred us onward, as well. So we pressed on into the night, singing songs, reading Psalms, and making up stories about depressed tree fairies who were rejected by the Keebler Elves. One final driver switch outside of Knoxville put Thomas back in the driver's seat, ready to take us in for landing. We had made it to Chattanooga, but the road wasn't over yet. Keith notices some distant lights to appear to be floating high above the rest of the city. Oh, why that's Lookout Mountain, on top of which is Thomas' house. Of course. Cue Indiana Jones music, as Thomas races up the winding bends of the mountain. The road offers us one last jewel of a view over the expansive ocean of lights that is Chattanooga down below. We had arrived at our destination, exactly fifteen hours after we pulled out of Juilliard. Perhaps even more amazing, we all still felt fresh and alive, and very much not desiring to kill each other. Shocking even to him, we had defied Keith's prophecy of woe. And true to her word, Thomas' mom had prepared a build-your-own taco dinner for us, a truly wonderful bookend to our first day. We'll see how the rest of it goes, but if the first day is any indication, this will truly be a spring break of legend.
3/3/15 - 12:35 AM
Sun rise and sun set -
Marking our new horizons -
Our greatest journey.
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