After I graduated college in 2003, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life like most college graduates, right? I was working at the hot dog stands in Freeport with my best friends, Alicia, Jeri and Holly when we came up with the idea to move to Los Angeles. We actually had a brilliant idea to utilize my contacts at MTV and pitch them a reality show about the 'six' of us (our friend Elaine from Ireland and Alicia's English Mastiff, Sampson would also be joining us on our trip out West). Our plan was to rent a camper, hitch up my Jetta to the back and drive from Maine to California with no apartment and no jobs awaiting us in Los Angeles. Sounded like an amazing reality show right? Unfortunately after our meeting with MTV, they decided they had too much on their plate and luckily for us (now that I think about it) the show didn't happen. If our idea were to be pitched to MTV today, I am sure we would all be famous by now, and probably crackheads and in jail too.....Alas, the MTV team we met with created The Hills shortly after our meeting and I didn't end up like Lauren Conrad or Heidi Montag.
Anyways, back to our trip....so on that snowy and freezing January 9th morning in 2004 (as you can tell in our picture, we were freezing), we packed up the camper and set forth for Cali. None of us ever have driven something that big and back in that day when there really wasn't any sort of GPS, we had the old fashioned paper maps in hand, routing our way across the US. We made many stops along the way of course as we had nothing solid waiting for us upon our arrival in LA. Now that I say that out loud, it sounds CRAZY!!! My poor parents...how did they let me leave their warm and safe home in Maine? Because I'm the middle child, that's why!
I remember stopping in Maryland the first night to pull over and sleep at a truck stop in the freezing cold. Then we made it to Atlanta to tour the Coca-Cola factory and then headed down to Tampa to visit Alicia's brother and sister-in-law. I think we even went to Hooters, oh and Disney World of course. Next we went to New Orleans where we shacked up at the shadiest mobile home park I have ever been to (sorry Mom and Pop) and partied our faces off on Bourbon Street. Then I think we drove to El Paso so Jeri could visit her Uncle while we stayed in a Wal-Mart parking lot (brushing your teeth in the Wal-Mart bathroom at 7:00 am is a hoot, let me tell you) and drove across the border to Juarez, Mexico where I valet parked my car so we could walk around for a few hours- again, am I freaking crazy??? After those adventures, we made it the to Hoover Damn, the Grand Canyon (this was an educational trip too) and to Las Vegas to visit Holly's grandmother and party of course. Finally, we made it safely to Los Angeles where we found a two bedroom apartment and eventually jobs and lives. Surprisingly, I am the only one of us who remains in LA and am still compiling our adventure for a book...you would all love to read about it, right?
