Adventures: Past and Future

I've done a lot of learning as I've traveled in 2014.

My trip to Austin in February taught me to be spontaneous, which is really the biggest lesson I've learned. That, and to always remove my laptop from my luggage before going through TSA.

In March, I learned that I am just as badass as one of the boys when it comes to backpacking, camping, hiking, etc. That was the trip where we drove to the Superstitions, arrived late, hiked in and set up camp in the pitch black night, were rained on, and nearly rained into the canyon. This is also when I had a bee fly into my backpack (while I was wearing it) and woke up to a beetle in my sleeping bag. And I didn't freak out either time.

May is when I committed to my trip to Oakland and Portland, spending more money on transportation than I ever have.

When that trip came around in June, I had learned a lot about being flexible. My plans never really materialized until a week before I left, and I didn't have my travel date for moving from OAK to PDX set until I had already arrived in Oakland.

I spent a lot of time by myself (especially in Oakland/San Francisco) and that was a beautiful thing. There's an art to getting lost--lost in a city, lost in thought. I mastered that art and made some wonderful life revelations in my time spent alone with a cup of coffee, camera and notebook.

Portland brought its own joys, one of which being Rhea, my mentor. Seeing her may have been one of the single best events of this year, partially because I realized what I want to report on, as a journalist.

Which brings me to where I am today.

I've got a lot of adventures under my belt for 2014, but I have an even bigger adventure ahead.

For one, I'm graduating from Arizona State in May (gasp, how did that happen), so I'm going to have to find a job, and it will hopefully look like an immigration reporting/photojournalism job and not a coffee job (although I'd really love to do that for a while.)

For twosies, I got into a fairly competitive border reporting class and will be traveling to Nicaragua in March 2015 to report on immigration between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The two countries have a similar immigration disposition to Mexico and the United States.

I first learned about this class nearly two years ago (and even blogged about it) as a means for Cronkite students to get experience reporting about border-related issues in other countries, and I nearly can't believe I'm getting to join it this year.

Huzzah!

Fall Break in Portland

That title is misleading. It was mostly Fall Break in the car, and a day and a half in Oregon.

It's been hard to write about this. I did, after all, move my best friend to a city that is roughly 1,300 miles away. Round trip, this adventure was 2651.1 miles of driving.

brother sister

I went up to Portland with three of my best friends and returned with two. Nobody died, it was just a moving trip. We took two cars and a bike and a lot of stuff and drove up in two days, stayed in Portland for a day and a half, and then took a day and a half to drive back with infinitely less stuff, and one less car and one less person.


The drive itself was far more enjoyable than I would have imagined. We were impatient to get to Portland, but we were able to stay with my friend Shane (who I met at Eva's wedding in August) in Redding, and meet his sister and friends. It was awesome because I don't really know him all that well, but he and his friends got along really well with me and my friends. We drank beer and talked about backpacking and got coffee and oatmeal for breakfast the next morning.

The short time I spent in Portland was categorized by coffee (duh) beer (also duh) and old, lovely friends. It felt like a giant reunion. It was the first stretch of time I had spent with Ben and Raquel and Brenna together, plus Liz and Cassie and Sydney who all moved to Portland earlier this year.

We just spent life together, and it was so so sweet to see everyone like the good ol' days.

family dinner

Then we just left Brenna there (she's doing well--we talk frequently) and headed back to Phoenix. The route we took was very desolate--through the top corner of California and south through Nevada. The sound of my car's tires on the barren road was the perfect soundtrack for our somber drive back.

And I also got to witness a bear run across the road in front of me.

And Ben got a speeding ticket.

And we explored some beautiful, lonely places like Bordertown, CA and Lunning, NV.