On The Road.
On the Road. Copyright Š 2017 Matt McGraw All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means - by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise - without prior written permission by the owner, Matt McGraw.
On the road. Matt McGraw
For Mikey
Introduction In the summer of 2016, my brother and I set out from our home in West Chester, Pennsylvania to go on a cross-country road trip to California. Neither of us had ever been to the West Coast before and we saw it as an opportunity to go on a fun, brotherly bonding adventure and cross a couple of things off of our respective bucket lists at the same time. Over the next week, we travelled across 12 states, passing through the heartland of America, to reach the Pacific Ocean. A lot of the time we ended up spending in the rental car, taking turns behind the wheel every other day so that the other could enjoy the scenery (because of this, I don’t have photos of every state we went through.) The photographs in this book are the result of those long days spent driving, as well as the subsequent nights spent exploring the small towns and big cities along our route. Some of the most memorable experiences of the trip were exploring Purdue University’s campus in Indiana, seeing the Rocky Mountains for the very first time in Colorado, and driving twenty miles out into the middle of nowhere in the Nevada desert at night. Experiencing the pure and utter darkness of the desert, broken up only by the faint glare of Las Vegas in the far-reaching distance, the tiny pinpricks of light from headlights on the highway, the incredible heat lightening of an incoming dust storm and the unbelievable starlight of the Milky Way overhead—my brother and I spoke about life and the future and marveled at the world around us. Although that night in particular stands out to me, much of our trip was about just that: broadening our minds while marveling at this amazing country we live in by experiencing the sometimes subtle and often major differences that each state and geographic region has to offer. In the end, one of our biggest reasons for going to the West Coast was to finally be able to swim in the Pacific Ocean, and when we got to Morro Bay, California and jumped in the freezing water for the very first time, it felt as though our pilgrimage across the United States of America was complete. Although we only scratched the surface of what this country has to offer, this trip was an eye-opening and memorable experience and through these photos, we can live it over and over again.
The Route
Day One
Pennsylvania
Ohio
Indiana
Illinois
Missouri
Kansas
Colorado
Utah
Nevada
California
Headed Home
Pennsylvania