My Own Backyard

The opening blog post is always awkward.

You have to think about who's going to be reading it. Friends? Family? Lover(s)? Strangers? Facebook creepers?
And cater to them all. Too much intro to yourself/your trip and it'll seem funny to those who know you. Too little,
and those who don't know you won't give a flying duck. (Man, I love autocorrect.)

~

My name is Katie. I'm 22 and I graduated college in May (2014). I figured I should do something before my student
loan grace period ends and I begin drowning in my debt, so here I am.

(This is me and my car, Charlie, when I got her in 2011.)

I've always been discontented with singular experiences. I may love what I'm doing, but I always want to also be
doing something else, usually simultaneously, often contradictory. I adore where I'm from and where I've lived in
the past few years, but I've always ached to know what other places would be like to grow up or live in. Obviously,
there's not much I can do about the growing up part, but two years ago I lived a year abroad to study and traveled
a fair bit of Europe. Then I realized I'd been to significantly less places in my own country, and most of them all in
the same Northeastern region. As exciting as Europe was/is, I know there is equal diversity to be found in my own
backyard. Even just driving one hour in my own state takes you to an entirely different type of place, skyscrapers
to farmland.

My original wish had been to live nomadic-ly, one state to another, spending weeks or months in each place. Days,
if I hated it. I wanted to work anywhere that would hire me for that short amount of time and feel like I was really
living there instead of just touring. Then reality set in and my future ambitions weighed on my mind, so I adapted.

This is my modified traverse around the US.

10,000 miles, 25+ states, 2.5 months, and me.

Let's hope I don't die.