Sherbet Skies, Oregon Coast

’ve found that many of the most meaningful moments I’ve experienced while traveling are often at the most unexpected times. I’ve had particularly good opportunities to discover this over the last four months since I returned from a ten week long solo road trip.

I always envisioned myself taking a great road trip at some point in my college years, but I’d always imagined that it’d be with the perfect travel buddy. Instead, as I drove on highway 40 from home to school in February of 2018, dreaming up the perfect road trip with an imaginary outdoorsy artist like myself, I realized that there would never be a perfect travel companion. At the time, I was feeling trapped by school and work, and the perfect solution hit me on that car ride. At the end of the semester, I was going to embark on that dreamed up road trip. Only, I was going to do it alone.

I think most people have some kind of preconceived idea of their perfect road trip and their ideal, confident, outgoing self taking on new opportunities like a champ, but realistically, I know I am far shyer than my own dreamed up, confident me in my brain. When I set out on my road trip, I’d had three months to dream up perfect scenarios of adventure and people-meeting. I met a lot of people,

many that I still think of on a weekly, even daily, basis, and I can easily go into long, happy stories of the people I met, but on a lonely evening along the coast of Oregon, I got to learn a little bit about not meeting people.

I had just spent a couple of days in Seattle visiting my aunt and it was time for me to move down the Pacific coast a bit, though I didn’t have any real plan in mind. Someone had suggested I visit Powell Bookstore in Portland, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to drive into another city so soon. I ended up driving along the coast, and eventually stopped in a little coastal town. I don’t even remember the name of it, only that it’d be the perfect place for a young adult novel to be set. I also remember feeling lonely. After a few days of having a companion, I often found it hard to adjust to being completely solo again.

I followed the primary road along the coast in this little town until I hit a dead end. All along the road there were signs saying “no overnight parking,” and the sun was starting to turn the sky orange as it got closer to the water. I parked in a small sandy parking lot full of cars and followed a family down a duney hill. I was wearing my hiking boots, which became soaked only moments later as I walked farther out of the beach than anyone else, and my ankles were quickly and unexpectedly rushed by salty, sandy water. Everyone on the beach

was with someone. There were several groups having fires on the beach, and a few other couples and families walking together. Before long, I was headed back to my car, slightly worried it might be hard to find a spot to sleep that night.

In the parking lot, I switched out my boots for sandals, and noticed a new car pull up. A guy opened the driver side door and poured out a beer. Another guy and a girl got out on the other side. The second two gathered up blankets, cigarettes, and beer and headed towards the beach, but the first guy noticed my license plate as I closed up my car. He walked my direction and asked what brought me all the way from Tennessee. I don’t remember much of the conversation beyond him saying that he’d taken a big road trip just last year. The whole time, I was trying to subtly, not-so-subtly get back in my car. Oblivious to my slow exit, he invited me to join him and his friends on the beach for a fire. I thanked him, but said no.

As I finally drove off in my car, my eyes filled up with odd, unspecifically reasoned tears. I had read so many young adult novels in middle school and high school that had bonfires on the beach in them. It always sounded so lovely, not to mention that was probably the way a girl would meet her summer love if my life were a young adult novel. I pulled over in a parking lot and thought for a second. I was having the calmest moment of panic ever. I felt mellow by the ocean, but totally freaked out in my brain. Was I not taking advantage of my opportunities?

I decided to go back to the beach. It was almost dark when I pulled back into my old parking spot. I could see the guy and his friends around a fire, but I couldn’t make myself get out of the car. Instead of feeling more anxious in that moment though, I felt a lot of peace. I’d given myself a second chance, and in that second chance, I was doing exactly what I wanted to-- not sitting next to a strange man who poured beer out of his car.

I don’t remember where I slept that night, either a highway pull-off or a Cabela’s parking lot, but I do remember feeling proud of myself that night. I trusted my instincts about a guy I didn’t know, and no, I don’t know if those instincts really saved me from anything, but I do know that when I doubted myself, I recognized it, and I chose to indulge myself in choosing what made me feel best in the situation.

There were a lot of times in my ten weeks of solo travel that I got to both doubt myself, and trust my instincts, and I could and should fill many more pages of typing, writing, and sketching about those moments, but as unexciting as that sunset framed evening was, it was one of my greatest learning moments along the way. There’s a lot of pride and joy that can come with learning through experience, but it’s even better when the sky is sherbet orange and the air around you smells like happy. The cool thing about solo travel is that you get to trust yourself, and indulge in you, and you can do it from anywhere.