East Meets West

Map

Starting in Ohio, we drove to NYC, where we spent 5 nights. We spent a couple nights at my parent’s near Philadelphia, then drove straight for a couple days out to Kansas. Then, we could take things at a slower pace while in see Colorado and Utah. After night 13, we drove overnight on day 14 and arrived back home to Ohio on day 15.

Introduction

It’s summer, 1997. I am in graduate school and I’m not as happy as I should be. Who is in grad school, but I’m coming to recognize that the path of academic research may not be for me—that it’s not what excites me.

I was hoping to take a trip this summer to leave my troubles behind. Early in the year, it was looking like my friends Yuri and Lena might return to the Ukraine for vacation. In the end, Yuri was unable to go return to Kiev. I hatched a plan to drive them to New York, where Lena could catch a plane and Yuri and I could continue traveling.

I was thinking it would be nice to go out west, but we would both need enough time to do so. We spent several days in New York, then Yuri and I headed for Colorado and Utah. It was a bit of a marathon, but a welcome, albeit temporary, rescue from school.