R and J in the USA

Not all who wander are lost. Never was that statement more true than the glorious roamings of our 50 states tour.

But some are. Some who wander ARE lost.

Julie tackled the early days of Indiana solo and, though she missed Ryan, what she missed more was Ryan’s GPS. Julie has a special gift of making technology go absolutely haywire and her phone’s GPS has shown signs that either a tech genius or an exorcist might be called for to get it back in line. So, she got to where she was going, but never by the most direct route or without turning around a few times to get onto the actual track. It was a good character builder and forced Julie to actually look at maps and orient herself to where she was and where she was going. Imagine that. Remember those days?

Julie’s first stop was Brown County State Park, an hour south of Indianapolis. It was stunning! Aside from the beauty of the park and the trees and the views, there was just a feel to it that was peaceful. She didn’t particularly want to leave. 

There may have been peace in the park, and Julie had just about the most peaceful evening in the park’s campground. But getting there was anything but peaceful, as Julie had lost track of how far she had been traveling and was way the heck out in the middle of nowhere with a gas needle on empty trying to find the park while her GPS was having a meltdown and sending her in circles.

She eventually made her way to the wrong end of what turned out to be a very big park and was lucky to find a park volunteer cutting grass at the otherwise empty area to tell her how to get to the other side of the park where there was a gas station five miles away. These were five miles with tons of steep uphill. Julie drove it with her fingers crossed, popping the van into neutral on any and all downhills to try to stretch whatever fumes she was driving on to the gas station.

When she finally made it to within a mile of the gas station, she ran into a first. For the first time on the trip, the van encountered a clearance issue. There was a gas station just one short mile away – so close! But there was a wooden structure to drive through by the state park attendant’s booth that was too low for the van to pass under between here and there. She would have to drive another five miles to the next exit to be able to leave the park and then circle back those five miles once out of the park in order to get to the gas station.

5 or 10 miled usually doesn’t seem like much, but when you are constantly wondering if you’ll make it around the next turn or the next hill, it starts to feel like a fairly epic distance to cross.

After coming a mere mile from gas and needing to turn back into the woods to tackle more endless twists and hills, at this point, it was comical. Julie had now been driving for over an hour close to and then past empty, first trying to overcome her erratic GPS, and then trying to make it from one spot in the park to the next just to locate a way out to get to the gas station. Since the clearance of the van was about 9 feet 4 inches with our WiFi-signal booster that sticks up, Julie would have yet one more journey to make before gas would be assured. Perfect! To the west exit it is! Five miles up more massive hills. It was an edge-of-your-seat, will-she-make-it-in-time type of adventure.

Remembering that the worst-case scenario included Julie taking what could surely be a delightful bike ride (while also holding a can of gasoline), she continued to remind herself of one of her life mantras, “There’s nothing to worry about until there is something to worry about.” She focused on not getting ahead of herself and focusing on the task at hand. But adrenaline was pumping just the same. With the needle far below E, Julie pulled into the gas station in the center of the wonderful artist’s retreat town of Nashville in what she can only assume, after an hour of precarious driving, was the nick of time.

With a full gasoline tank and an Indiana adventure under her belt, THEN, Julie enjoyed an incredibly peaceful night in the park.