Here is the letter that Jordan wrote to send out with our Christmas cards this year. I loved reading it myself so I thought I’d share with everyone! It is a summary of our cross-country trip from New York to California this past summer. Enjoy!
the letter:
2019 was a year of noteworthy change for Kaitlyn and I as we decided to rend asunder the familiarities of life carefully fashioned for ourselves during 3 years, 7 months, and 8 days in New York City and take to the road as common vagabonds. Much like the pioneers in days past, we loaded our possessions in a covered wagon of sorts and hit the dusty trail for California.
Our time in the city had been well spent, particularly by Kaitlyn who thoroughly enjoyed the seasons, sights, entertainment, parks, and various friendships thus cultivated. My own objectives in the city were sufficiently met as we had married in March 2018. Prior to that point, Kaitlyn and I differed drastically in our day-to-day life, one of us thriving, the other…hardly surviving. For my job, I had purchased a bicycle to make my therapy home visits, which was promptly stolen. My wallet was subsequently stolen, and finally, the moped that I had purchased to replace my stolen bicycle was also stolen. To thievery and panhandling in the Bronx, it seemed there was no end. Parking tickets, car exhaust, souring garbage, great masses of people, cold fingers, crunched fenders, traffic jams, stalled subway trains....quite enough. Finally, during our final year in Brooklyn, even Kaitlyn concluded that our lively chapter of urban living had reached its zenith. And so, together over dinner one night, we decided to escape from New York.
As we discussed how we would get our belongings across the country, the outline of an epic road trip started to germinate in my nature-starved mind. Kaitlyn had not seen much of the West, so we wanted this trip to encapsulate as much as possible - the plains, the desert, the mountains, and the coast. I began a spreadsheet that divided the trip into these four segments and made a list of specific places we would like to experience. The problem was, the list began to grow rapidly and the modest trip first imagined turned into a preposterous 7,000 mile odyssey. I remember once reading a great quote by Daniel Burnham, the architect charged with building the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 - a colossal project - who said, “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” With plans now actualizing, we purchased the instrument of conveyance across the great American expanse, our beautiful black dromedary, the F-150. The camper trailer we found was 17 feet long and...quite cozy. As the day of departure arrived in May 2019, we left our mighty city with spirits high and blood well-stirred.
We first headed to Little York, a lovely town in upstate NY where Kaitlyn and her family spent past summers beside a beautiful lake. We enjoyed visiting with our family friends Renee & Ned there, bought a pie from Anderson’s, ate some buffalo wings in Buffalo, and drove to Niagara Falls. On our way to Chicago we stopped in at the RV Hall of Fame in Elkhart, IN to see what it would take to secure a future induction and along the way found an Amish settlement with an Amish buffet. We met with my cousin Derek in Chicago and ate some deep dish pizza, took an architectural river tour of the city, stopped in the famous Field Museum to view taxidermied man-eating lions among other things, viewed the Route 66 “Begin Sign” and ate the Palmer Brownie - the original brownie recipe from 1893. On our way through Missouri we stopped at the Abraham Lincoln Museum, toured the Tom Sawyer Cave in Hannibal and smashed a finger pretty badly at a campsite. We arrived in Kansas City to meet up with some good friends and consume proper BBQ. Later, while driving home along I-435, we suffered our one and only trailer tire blowout.
Regrouping and resupplying at my parent’s home for several days we enjoyed time with family and friends before pushing on through the plains. Our trip through the Midwest included a few notable detours such as the Dalton Gang Hideout in Coffeyville, Kansas, The Big Texan Restaurant in Amarillo, Texas famous for its 72 oz steak (unattempted), cannonballing into the Blue Hole of Santa Rosa, New Mexico, and peering into the Apache Death Caves, Arizona. We spent several days outside of Sedona, Arizona and were joined by our friends Matt and Aubrey who camped with us and hiked The Devil’s Bridge Trail. We drove north to the Grand Canyon to catch a sunrise, took in the beauty of Zion National Park, toured the famous Antelope Canyon, viewed Horseshoe Bend of the Colorado River, experienced the sandstone buttes of Monument Valley, and sat on the quadripoint of the Four Corners.
Colorado was beautiful in early June and despite several weeks on the road, traveling conditions remained lovely both within and outside of the camper. The fear was that weeks of close proximity and cast iron camp cuisine would disintegrate relations. Happily, this was not the case. We toured Mesa Verde, an ancient Pueblo archaeological site, camped for several days in Telluride, soaked in the hot springs of Ouray, and rode the coal-fired, steam-powered Silverton-Durango Train to the mining town of Silverton where we stayed in the historic Grand Imperial Hotel and later toured the Old Hundred Gold Mine. In Colorado Springs we toured the Glen Eyrie Castle, went to a concert under the stars at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, walked through the famous Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, and enjoyed the supreme views in Rocky Mountain National Park. Pushing hard through Wyoming, we arrived in Jackson and spent several days appreciating the Grand Teton National Park and surrounding area. We saddled up some horses, purchased a cowboy hat and shot some pool in the famous Million Dollar Cowboy Bar with a live honky tonk band.
After exploring Yellowstone we drove west to Portland, Oregon where we hiked to several waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge, overate at a restaurant called Tad’s Chicken and Dumplings, got lost and bought some reading material in Powell’s City of Books, and enjoyed the famous rose gardens of the city. We pushed on to the Pacific Ocean where we camped, as Lewis and Clark did, on the windy shore of Cape Disappointment of the Washington coast. After stopping in to see a dear old friend still confined within a roadside curiosity shop - Jake the Alligator Man - and grabbing some marionberry pie, we made our way to the Oregon coastal town of Seaside where I had previously lived for a time. Kaitlyn busied herself with watercolor paintings of Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach while I hiked.
On the last leg of the trip, we headed south down the Oregon Coast making stops for clam chowder, a tour of the Tillamook Cheese Factory, various lighthouses, and dazzling coastal views of the Pacific. We camped in a redwood forest in northern California, happened upon Seabiscuit the racehorse’s grave, toured a castle at a winery in Napa Valley, and spent a day in San Francisco, taking in the sights and appreciating a hotel shower and other amenities of civilization. The final days of the trip included Yosemite National Park, Big Sur, touring the Hearst Mansion, sneaking through LA before traffic developed, and arriving in San Diego in time to celebrate the completion of our trip on the Fourth of July, fireworks exploding.
The camper was sold months ago, the pickup was traded for an economical car, and our schedules have long since returned to the practical pursuit of business and employment. But every once in awhile, usually when fighting traffic, I remember that for a glorious time somewhere in wild Americana, I was the Gypsy King and Kaitlyn was my Gypsy Queen and together we ruled the open road.
“And yet even today we hear people ask in surprise: What is the use of these voyages of exploration? What good do they do us? Little brains, I always answer to myself, have only room for thoughts of bread and butter.”
