Adventures: My Journey West

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am starting school at the University of Washington in September. Last Friday I finished packing up my car, topped it off with a pair of meowing angry orange furballs, picked up my cousin from outside of Baltimore and we headed west.

We drove through Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas to Colorado where we’re now taking a day’s rest with family. I’ll write about my feelings on (expansive and beautiful) Kansas later. Tomorrow we start the second half of the journey through Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and finally to Seattle, Washington my new home.

I am leaving so much behind, and have such a full and exciting future to look forward to. A going-away card from a dear friend had the following Walt Whitman quote:

“This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning god, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat for nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air of every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh will be a great poem.”