The first leg of my trip is complete. I have settled into White Rock, BC for the next 30 days, until September 9th.

When you were a kid and the school year crept slowly through May, nearing its end, the upcoming summer vacation was almost too much to behold. You could only let a part of your mind think about it or you’d go crazy, like staring into an infinite universe. There was simply no way to comprehend what those three months of freedom meant. Each May was your first - you’d never seen a summer vacation before. You had always been going to school, for as far back as you could remember. You were certain that on the day you were born your mother kissed you on the head, handed you a Trapper Keeper and sack lunch, and dropped you off at a gray cul-de-sac in front of a looming building. Comprehending spending a weekday with anyone but batty Mrs. Hosenfefer, doing anything but eight hours of geography and long division, was unfathomable.

Then it came.

You swam, you slept, you watched “The Price is Right” and “Pinky and the Brain.” You went to the beach and burned your nose. You ate watermelon and played wiffle ball until darkness fell and you couldn’t see that tiny white sphere anymore.

In August, your heart skipped a beat when you realized it was almost time to go back to school. School! What was that? You could only vaguely remember your school friends and the principal and the “good” outfits of clothing you wore there. Wait, I have to sit at a desk for how long? That’s unconscionable. I’ve never heard of such nonsense.

On the first day back you wandered the long school halls like an unfamiliar hotel room in the dark. You thought you had been there before, sometime in the distant past, but it was like grasping at the images in a dream when you wake from it. You could just barely recall.

From August 2nd to August 9th, I drove 3,357 miles, averaging 420 miles per day for eight days. On the 10th, when I woke up in British Columbia, my first instinct was to go online to plot my day’s route, maybe reserve a cheap motel. But there was no need.

I unpacked a few clothes, went to the grocery store, and restlessly paced the apartment. I wanted to go somewhere. I felt like I had always been on the move. Sitting in a Barcalounger watching TV just felt…wrong. I was sure there’d been days before where I hadn’t driven for hours, watching the scenery and the people change, but I couldn’t remember them.

Only 29 more days…

Box Score - Six Mile, SC to White Rock, BC

• 3,357 miles driven
• 10.5 tanks of gas
• $794 worth of gas
• $580 worth of hotel rooms
• 12 states (SC, NC, TN, KY, IN, IL, IA, NE, WY, MT, ID, WA)
• 2 times I potentially damaged my hearing by cranking the volume to 11 for this song
• Dozens of times I saved my hearing by turning the radio off for this song.
• 1 time I heard Darius Rucker and Jessica Simpson back-to-back on a country station. What’s this world coming to? (Hootie’s song isn’t bad, though.)
• 11 speed traps passed
• 0 speeding tickets
• $0 fast food purchased. (Hey, I’m as surprised as anyone.)
• 14 apartments in Canada contacted
• 1 apartment found
• 391 pictures taken
• 1 very thorough search of my truck by a man with a gun