THE KING RANCH CHRONICLES: 17 Days, 20 States, 5,814 Miles

Fives years ago today, my husband (then boyfriend) Tim and I returned home from a pretty epic road trip. 17 days, 20 states, 5,814 miles, 89 hours of driving, 8 cities, and 5 National Parks–and lots of camping! We like to refer to it as ‘The King Ranch Chronicles,’ as we drove the entire way in Tim’s Ford F-150 King Ranch Truck. And by ‘we’ I mean he drove the entire way. 🙂

I actually created a blog that I used as a trip journal, which still lives at kingranchchronicles.wordpress.com, if you’re bored and you’d like a more in-depth look at our itinerary! (Just scroll all the way to the bottom to see a list of the posts for each of our stops.) I wanted to re-post two things here, though, as a way to commemorate our long lost days of cruising Route 80 without a care in the world. Haha! One is a video I created that compiled the 1,500 photos I took throughout our trip (FYI don’t think of it as a slideshow – it’ll just make you dizzy if you try to ‘see’ every photo!) and the other is what I wrote as we were about an hour out from the end of our trip. It’s pretty crazy to think that five years have passed and our lives have changed so much! An engagement, a wedding, a move, a house, a baby…and the adventure continues!

A 17 day road trip across the U.S. in 7 minutes and 40 seconds

An excerpt from my last blog post of the trip:

I can’t even begin to describe how grateful I am to have had the chance to go on this trip. It was truly a trip of a lifetime, and I got to do it with my best friend. Together we saw family, friends, sunsets, skylines, wild animals, and lots of miles of highway. I am so thankful to have such an amazing guy like Tim in my life. Although it frustrates him more than anything, he understands that I’m really bad at planning the little details, that I have to pee A LOT, and that I take an ungodly amount of pictures. And as for me, I now know and understand that he hates getting to a campground after dark, he WILL miss an ND game for the Grand Canyon (but if he can listen to it at the Grand Canyon then he will do that), and that he 100% has a crush on Miley Cyrus. I know right? Ew.

I think it’s safe to say that we both learned a lot about each other on this trip..mostly good, a little bad, and some ugly. I can honestly say that I am one lucky girl! We also learned a lot about the good ol’ U.S. of A. What an awesome country we live in!

I also want to give a shout out to my parents, who took me on many road trips similar to this one when I was a kid. (You could say I had a pretty ridiculous childhood–one summer we DROVE to Alaska!) They instilled in me the importance of exploring my surroundings and finding new ways of seeing the world–all while having fun and staying on a realistic budget.  I think one of the best parts of this trip was the fact that even though I had been to many of the places before, my experience this time around was completely different! That’s one reason why I love traveling–it’s always an adventure.

For now, I’m headed back to Hoboken and NYC. Where to next? Who knows! But in the meantime, I’ll finish out this blog with my favorite quote (by Henry Miller):
“One’s destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things.”

Some of my favorite photos + my recommendations

If someone were to ask me where my favorite place in the United States is, I would definitely say standing on the rocky shore of Jenny Lake in Grand Tetons National Park at sunrise. Not specific at all! But seriously, I have now been to the Grand Tetons three times and each time I go it gives me all. the. feels. My recommendation is to get to the park SUPER EARLY in the morning (like 4 or 5am) and go to Jenny Lake Campground and try to get a camping spot. You literarily have to be aggressive AF and stalk the sites while people are still in their tents sleeping. But it’s so worth it. SERIOUSLY SO WORTH IT.

My other favorite place is Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. It’s hit-you-in-the-face spectacular that Mother Earth created something like that, and I honestly could stand and look at it all day. And the fact that you can actually hike down in to it like it ain’t no thang makes it even better. Hiking in the Grand Canyon feels like a way bigger commitment, but Tim and I took both a sunrise and sunset hike in Bryce Canyon and both required the perfect amount of effort and time.

If I were to pick a favorite city, it would hands down be Nashville. People will tell you it’s overrated and not to go to Broadway because it’s too touristy, but I think that’s CRAP. Tim and I have now been to Nashville five times and every time we go we have so much fun. You just have to embrace the tackiness, wear cowboy boots and bar hop to find the best live bands you’ll ever get to listen to for ‘free.’

My final recommendation? If you’re dating someone and you’re trying to figure out if they’re “the one,” go on a road trip (and camp the whole way). In my opinion, it’ll either make ya or break ya. 🙂