The person speaking those words at the Denver airport couldn't possibly imagine the significance that sentence carried for me. Upon hearing it, thoughts rang through my mind, and as quickly as they entered, were pushed out by new ones. We were doing it again. None of us had ever been to that part of the country. Can Frankenstein, with 201,000 miles on it, survive a five day road trip across the United States of America? Why is that guy wearing Joel's sweatshirt? I hope Joel is also wearing that sweatshirt. Speaking of shirts, why is Jackson's shirt still on? We don't even know where we're going to live. Stuff like that.
I drove from Grand Junction to Denver that Wednesday afternoon to pick the guys up. That night, we stayed at Drew's house, and we hung out with Anthony and Jason as well - all old friends from Craig. The next morning, around 6:00 am, we were on I-70 out of Colorado and into Kansas. We all hate Kansas. Our 16 hour drive led us to the Buffalo River around Ponca, Arkansas, where we met up with Kyle and Ashley and their dog Millie. For Kyle and me it was a long overdue reunion, and hopefully it won't be another two years before I see him again. We camped for two nights surviving the irritating ticks, the irritable motor home "camping" neighbor, and bathing in the less-than-favorable temperature of the river. On Saturday we got back on the road, taking the scenic route out of Arkansas and into Tennessee, where we made it nearly to Knoxville, and camped in a nearby national park. None of us had seen a camping spot like this before. These southerners really love their motor homes. At the campsite next to ours, however, we had a chance to finally meet some new people - two college-aged girls who needed a hatchet to chop up some firewood. Enter Jackson. Bingo. This was our first chance to dissect the minds of southern women, and by-golly, we took it. Needless to say, we spent most of the evening talking to them. Sunday morning showed it's beautiful face, and with only four hours to go, we headed to Asheville. Arriving into the city was frantic. We didn't know where we were going, nor did we actually have an actual destination other than just Asheville. Eventually, we made our way downtown, doing the typical tourist thing until we met with Evan and Dylan, two of our bosses, and their wives who took us out to dinner. At the end of the night, we had no idea where we were, who we were surrounded by, when our job at the new zipline started, or what was for breakfast the next day; but one thing we did know: Frankenstein made it to Asheville.
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