T-MINUS 3 Days

T-MINUS 3 Days....Preparing for Departure

On Thursday 5/18/06 I will be heading out of New Brunswick, NJ, my home of the last 3 years and driving across the great US of A to California. Driving across the nation is an adventure I have always thought about but never dreamed of seriously undertaking because I felt it was socially irresponsible…However, a month ago I was (amazingly) offered a seasonal park ranger position in Yosemite National Park. And so the adventure begins….


My friend/neighbor/coworker Reece decided to embark on the journey with me. I sent away for tons of maps, “TravelBooks”, “CampBooks”, and a super-cute, personalized “TripTik” from AAA. The quality of these materials is impressive, and the TripTik is great—it’s a personalized bound booklet of a suggested route from New Brunswick, NJ to Yosemite National Park, CA. Full of maps and points of interest, lodgings and places to eat along the route, I only wish it included some natural history information instead of the essentially meaningless little blurbs about random cities and towns we will pass. (I suppose my personal interests diverge from the practical in that respect….)

So the next few days will be devoted to packing & some planning. We have a general idea of the route we will be taking- across NJ and into PA, down 68 into Maryland & South to West Virginia. Then westward across Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas & Colorado. We plan on slowing down at this point and taking a few more days to meander across Colorado, Utah, Nevada and finally into Yosemite. Here I must "report for duty" on the 28th (seriously that's how they phrase it), and Reece is going to hang around and explore the park (on the insistent recommendation of his father) until the 31st. Then I will be a lone Jersey girl in the great Golden State. This is going to be crazy.

NJ ---> CA

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