After I turned down the easy way moving by flight, it was pretty sure that my moving would involve some driving. This opened the Pandora's box and released endless questions: (1) Do I drive my own car or rent a car for this challenging task? (2) Do I drive for the complete trip, or I just do part of it and switch to flight at some point? (3) Should I find some company for the trip or set off alone? (4) Which route do I take? (5) When should I leave?... The list of questions went on and on and on, I even lost count of it. Worse, when I put in other factors of consideration, such as cost, time budget, etc. it became a very complex problem. I still remember that for one night or two, I lay on my bed going over the questions and coming up with trip proposals, and eventually went sleepless until 3AM or so.
The turning point for the whole process of trip planning was a surprising finding. One day I became curious about how long I have to drive from LA to Gainesville, and used Google Map (highly recommended, a very useful tool for trip planning or just typical daily life) to find out. With no surprise, the shortest path from LA to Gainesville is by I-10 all the way, and the total distance is 2,463 miles. However, this is a less interesting route to me as I don't know many tourist attractions along the way.
I love the nature and beautiful scenaries, so I would prefer a route with more national parks to visit. Going through the southern part of the state Utah seems to be a good choice, but it is a detour for sure. Wishing that the detour is not too bad, I started to survey about this seemingly more interesting route. First, I probably will end up at Denver, CO if I drive through south Utah. Then, starting from Denver, I will try to take the shortest route available to Gainesville. I used Google map again to find out the distance of these two sub-routes and added them up. The answer turned out to be a big surprise! If you think you are familiar with the US map, take the following challenge:
(Question) How long is the driving distance of the following route: Los Angeles->Las Vegas-> Denver -> St. Louis -> Atlanta -> Gainesville? (Hint: from LA to Gainesville using I-10 is 2,463 miles)
Well here is the answer: From LA to Denver it is 1,015 miles, and from Denver to Gainesville it is 1,733 miles. That is a total of 2,748 miles, only 10% more than the direct route!! This answer surprised me and most people to whom I asked the question. I even doubted whether Google map provided me the correct information, so I double checked with other maps, too. They all pointed to the same fact.
But this surprise was a very pleasent one. With this information, I was assured that I won't wander far off from the right track if I take this more interesting route. After I found this, I never had a second thought about which route I should take.
However, one thing remained puzzling to me, and perhaps also to you at this point. That is, why was I so obsessed about driving? True, it is fun, but it is a lot of hassle at the same time. Why couldn't I do it just like most people, purchasing a flight ticket and rendering the hard work to the pilot? I was really not sure about this question myself through out the planning stage of the trip, and as mentioned earlier, I was just following my heart.
I tried hard to resolve this little puzzle within myself for some time. Is it because I insist on having some fun while moving? Well, if it is purely the reason, my friend's proposal would make more sense: Move by flying, settle down, and I can have one week or more time traveling around in Florida. That might be a simpler, cost-efficient solution if I am seeking just fun, but it did not appeal to me. Is it because I like driving so much? Not exactly, plus I was really worried about my nine-year-old Corolla, driving for such long distance was not considered an attractive thing in the first place. Or I just want something extra-ordinary, far from my daily life experience? Well, maybe. In Chinese there is a saying, "One should do something naive, simple-minded, or even crazy. Otherwise, it is like one has never been young," At the age of 29, I would not really call myself young, but I felt it is a right time to take on this challenge. The golden opportunity had been given to me, and I really wanted to catch it. This sounded like the reason, but I was still not really satisfied. I felt my motivation was still under-justified.
But one day the reason really came to me unexpectedly. That day I was saying goodbye to several friends and staff at school, and explained them about my driving trip. Suddenly, I realized why I had chosen to drive.
Traveling by flight is fast and convenient, but it also takes away all the time on the road. With one shuteye I am in a different timezone, sometimes even a different country. It feels like someone grabs me from point A and throws me to point B. It leaves no time for adjustment or thinking about the move. Before I realize it the traveling would be done. This was pretty much what I felt when I first came to US in 2003. Before I forgot the touch of my own bed at home, I was in a different appartment I called home for three years in the future.
Sometimes I feel that things in life happen in a pace that is difficult to catch up. I would prefer some more time for the transition, given it is a major one. So I purposefully set up the driving trip to allow some trasition time for myself on the road, although mostly I was unaware of what kind of mind trick I was really playing until a couple of days before leaving. Once I got a clue, I pondered more on that, and realized what I really wanted, subconsciously, was to arrange the move as if it is a trip. I spent time on planing the route and points to visit, minimizing the mental impact that I am leaving for good. It is just a trip, but I am not going back to the origin at the end. I will find some place that is nice and stay there by the end of the trip. This is the setup I put up for my moving trip.
Well, interesting, isn't it? Human minds are very delicate creations indeed. Sometimes, we have to look into ourselves very hard to just realize what we are really thinking or doing. And through that, we understand ourselves better.
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