20+ cross-country drives melt into this page.
The first time I drove across the US was to help a friend move from Maryland to California with another buddy in November of 2007. I think I got internally hooked on it without knowing. In January of 2009, I moved from Philly to San Diego. Later in 2009, I flew back east to help move someone out west. Left San Diego in 2010 to drive back to Delaware. I did it because I was broke and needed to move back in with the folks and get as much work as possible. During that time I got my Dad’s old van and helped another friend move cross country from Philly to San Diego in 2011. Trying not to drink and drive I built a bed in there. Then a bike rack. Then a skateboard rack, clothing shelves, added a cooler, extra battery….. The next thing I knew my new goal after getting out of debt was to save up enough to get on the road with time to explore. In the fall of 2013, I got on the road. A good bulk of the photos here are from this time. After many coast-to-coast drives and upgrading to a pickup truck with a toaster shell camper, in 2016 I got an apartment in Portland, Oregon. For the next few years, my exploring was mainly in the PNW with a DR650 motorcycle. In the fall of 2019, I got a new job that had me as a traveling salesman driving all over the country. Due to covid in early 2020, that job ended much quicker than I thought. But that put me back on the road on my own. At first, with a mini van. Then I drove my motorcycle from Portland to Delaware to work for the summer. A head-on collision with a truck ended my…… well everything for 6 months. After healing and getting 65 screws and 13 plates holding my face back together I got back on the road (along with everyone else in the US with covid unemployment checks) in an F250 with a camper shell. After a year fully on the road picking up odd jobs here and there, I sold the truck for an Excursion and that’s where I’m at now in 2022.
