In 2010, I went on a month long road trip around the United States! It was such a great time. I went soleley with my grandma Alverna and we went in her Mercedes SLK sports car.. What an odd yet exciting adventure!
Before I started on the road trip, everybody told me how it was going to be "the trip of a lifetime" that I would never be able to experience again. For some reason I didn't believe them because after all I started the trip as a bored-with-life fourteen year old girl. I came back from my trip a changed person with a greater appreciation of life, history, and all that they can bring.
I started out on my journey a few days after the fourth of July. I was only expecting it to be two weeks and I definitley did not know what I was in for in the month to come. We left home and our first destination was the great Las Vegas, Nevada for a night. When we first got there, we checked into our hotel then drove 30 miles to see Hoover Dam. It was so enormous!. That night we stayed at Circus Circus and went and saw acrobatic acts in the entertainment building. This got me a bit more excited for the rest of the trip.
The next morning we left Las Vegas and continued on to our next destination, Cripple Creek, CO. Cripple Creek is a small ghost-mining town a few hours from Denver. We went on a train ride and got to see back in the mountains where people used to mine for gold. It was such a unique town and I learned a lot of it's history while I was there.
Our next stop was to be the great historical Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota. It was one of my favorite things to see. We stayed at a nearby hotel and went sight seeing for a few days.Next, we drove across Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. We stayed with a friend in Michigan for a few days and were on the road again.
Next we drove south to DC. We spent a week there seeing as much as we possibly could. By this time I had a much better appreciation for our country and it's history. We visited Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Washington memorial, the capital building, and much more. From there we visited Mt Vernon, George Washington's home, I got to see his old and new tombstone where he is now. It was such an intense place to be to know the first president of our country rests there. We also got to visit Thomas Jefferson's home, Montecello.
Next, we stayed a week at my aunt's house in Tennessee and I spent my birthday there. We visited Rock City and the wonderous and amazing Ruby Falls. That is by far my favorite place. From there we headed home making little stops along the way.
I gained so much from this trip and it was definitley something I will never forget. I got to spend a whole month bonding with my grandma and I learned so much that made our country what it is now. I gained the need and desire to learn new things all the time and this trip even helped me decide to go to college to learn and expand my knowledge. I did not tell all of my adventures in this essay that I experienced but there was many more. This trip was definitley my "trip of lifetime".
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