Ditching the books and hitting the road

On a cold December night last year, fellow 1T4 alum Alanna Ross and I made a pact on the back of a used napkin at the Lakeview Diner. A travel pact.

Over midnight wings, mac & cheese, and grossly overpriced beer, we drew a crude map of the coasts of Peru, Ecuador, and Chile. Six weeks, two people.

This was our very own incarnation of the ubiquitous and omnipresent “Grad Trip” that so fervently accompanies new graduates in the wake of their startling independence and uncertain futures. Neither Alanna nor I had solid plans on what we wanted to do after graduating, but we both knew that more school was not on our immediate agendas.

So, after a few dedicated months of planning, the recruitment of just a few more willing soon-to-be Trin alums, and while riding on a high that can only be achieved by the [successful] culmination of four years of perpetual papers, tedious tests, and acrimonious assignments, we set off for Peru.

The first of May was the first day of our adventure. Our crew - now composed of Ivana Tanzini, Alanna, Annie Lewis, her brother, Alanna, and myself - took to the Andean verve of Cusco, the jungles of Machu Picchu, the extreme urbanity of Lima, the arid deserts of Huacachina, the mountainous challenges of Huaraz, and finally the attractive tranquillity of Mancora with a vigorous energy we thought had been long sucked from our souls.

I don’t think any of us were quite ready to come home from our idyllic nirvana, but the healing waters of the Pacific Ocean left us with enough courage to brave our impending convocation.

A month later, back home, newly convocated, but not yet settled into any routine, I realized that I had not had enough of that travelling life. I think Alanna and I were still in Peru when we had the fleeting idea to drive out East and go camping in PEI for a few nights. This idea, however, faded into the background following our return home. Days turning into weeks as convocation came and went.

That was the case until Emily Jennings - another illustrious 1T4 alum - decided that she, too, desired to embark on a month long grad trip, this time across Canada and the United States. Unlike myself, Emily had a destination in mind, wanting to go home and spend a few weeks with her parents in Vancouver.

The plan was to drive East with Alanna and go camping on Prince Edward Island for a few days, and then pick up Emily on our way West to drive through America’s infamous Midwest. We would then drop Emily off in Vancouver and I’d make the slow pilgrimage back to Hogtown with a childhood buddy.

Before I continue, I really must establish the obscenity of our itinerary. Coming off our trip to Peru, where crossing the country was an easy combination of trains, planes, and automobiles, I can now admit that I severely underestimated the ravage that driving from Toronto to Vancouver would wreck all over my body. In just over a month, I put over twenty-two thousand kilometres on my car and traversed across fifteen states and eight provinces. Early morning starts after getting only five hours sleep quickly became the norm. Sitting behind the wheel of a car for the better part of the day, while not physically strenuous, still managed to leave me exhausted after finally switching off the ignition for the day.

When you take a look at our itinerary, it might come as a surprise that my sharpest and fondest memories don’t come from Vancouver, Quebec City, Boston, or Chicago. Instead, my best memories came unexpectedly while traipsing through the American Midwest, the Canadian Prairies, and the place of international weirdness that just seems to always exist in locales like Kootenai, Idaho, or Medicine Hat, Alberta.

About halfway into our trip, Emily and I found ourselves bounding across the South Dakota interstate toward Mount Rushmore. The road lead us through towns and villages whose big claim to fame were oddly alluring roadside attractions like “The World’s Only Corn Palace” and the “The World’s Largest SPAM Museum.” These stops were welcome breaks from the accepted monotony of getting from point A to B that is expected on a road trip as ambitious as ours.

The World’s Only Corn Palace was simultaneously the high and low point of our adventure through South Dakota. For the fifty miles leading up to this monument of a-maize-ing ingenuity, there was a billboard lauding the majesty and awe-inspiring beauty of the aforementioned corn palace. After fifty billboards stretching two states, each one of them chocked full with praise and promise, Emily and I simply had to pull off the interstate and into the town of Mitchell to experience this castle of corn.

With the energy of two angry toddlers itching to get out of the car, we charged for the entrance. Turns out the “Corn Palace” was a high school auditorium not unlike the one home to the East High Wildcats a la High School Musical. The disappointment was earth-shattering, but even then, as we made our way back to the car, we both burst into fits of laughter at the sight of an actual statue of corn, meant to commemorate this important building and its cultural and financial significance to this middle-of-nowhere town out in South Dakota.

Retrospectively, our trip across the country was quite similar to the established non-routine that typified my undergraduate life. Like a road trip, school was different every day, only loosely tied together by the schedule of a Humanities undergraduate student. Between the twenty hours of class a week that kept events cohesive, the freedom of unexpected adventures into unchartered territory is what I think will be my sharpest and fondest memories from my undergrad.

I will never forget the big events like my first toga party, or my last Conversat. Nor will I forget driving to Barrie at two in the morning for slushies, rushing the stage at a Yelle concert, or standing in line for ten hours at Honest Ed’s for a hand-painted sign. These are the things that evoke the best of my time at Trin.

If anything, these two trips taught me that my itchy feet are not the result of some innate force driving me to travel, but rather an attempt to recreate the daily wonderment that goes hand in hand with anyone’s undergrad.

Every day in school had the potential of being a trip to the Corn Palace, the RCMP uniform museum, or that truck stop in Detroit, Oregon. Especially before exam season, I just want to stress that while getting there may be the plan, do not forget to take an off-ramp every few hundred kilometres.

Scheduled Stops:

1. Toronto, Ontario

2. Quebec City, Quebec

3. Campelltown, New Brunswick

4. Alberton, Prince Eduard Island

5. Fundy National Park, New Brunswick

6. Boston, Massachusetts

7. Orchard Park, New York

8. Chicago, Illinois

9. Sioux Falls, South Dakota

10. Buffalo, Wyoming

11. Yellowstone, Wyoming

12. Sun Valley, Idaho

13. Burns, Oregon

14. Cape Lookout, Oregon

15. Portland, Oregon

16. Victoria, British Columbia

17. Tofino, British Columbia

18. Vancouver, British Columbia

19. Whistler, British Columbia

20. Jasper, Alberta

21. Edmonton, Alberta

22. Calgary, Alberta

23. Regina, Saskatchewan

24. Thunder Bay, Ontario

25. French River, Ontario