During the summer of 2016 I was faced with the reality of moving from Illinois to Arizona. Sure, everyone goes away to college, whether it be staying in your home state or moving to another, but not many future college students plan on their entire family coming with them. In less then a month I was told my childhood home sold on the market, my family purchased a home in the desert, and that we had to pack up our lives and leave my hometown that I spent my entire life in. During the mist of this confusion I was questioning how my relationships and friendships would survive moving across the country and how I would handle the adjustments. Would I be able to come back and visit my extended family and friends? How would I get there? Where would I stay if I did? Plus, transportation around town? After torturing myself in my own mind, I decided that if this was happening then I would make the best situation possible out of it. I decided to pack up my luggage and best friend, Tressie, and stuff them into my Kia Soul to have the road trip of my life. Road tripping from Illinois to Arizona was a defining maturity moment in my life. Two 18 year olds being on the open road was a type of freedom I had not yet felt. I encourage everyone to seek this kind of freedom and wanderlust in their lives because it can teach you the most.

1. I was taught to push myself

I was taught my body's limits of endurance and struggle from climbing The Rocky Mountains. I was also taught how to deal with a flat. Not just any flat, but the kind that lips on the ground. (What do two clueless18 year olds decide to do with a flat tire? Drive on it. For anyone who does not know, this is a horrible idea.) That day I learned how to fill a tire and check its pressure. After all of this, that happened in one day, I had to push myself to drive 12 hours straight through the mountains downshifting for the very first time.

2. I was taught how friends become family

Tressie and I had met just 10 short months earlier as our boyfriend's dates to the senior homecoming dance. We had been with each other through heartbreak, prom and graduation, and huge changes in our lives. In just 10 months I thought I knew the inside and out of this girl. This road trip taught me that I only knew the surface of her. She held so much more strength and beauty that I thought was possible for someone. I was also taught how to share almost 200 hours with someone and love them even more then where we started from. Tressie and our road trip will always hold a special place in my heart.

3. I was taught how small I am

Climbing The Rocky Mountains was one of the best experiences of my life. Seeing the natural beauty of a place virtually untouched by humans was cleansing. To breathe the mountain's thin air and to ground myself in the soil was a kind of closeness with the Earth I can not describe. Being in the middle of all the scenery I felt a kind of smallness that I was never faced with growing up in suburbia. This smallness makes you feel almost insignificant in the long run of the planet, but also somehow blessed that you happened to be born and experience this.

4. I was taught organization

While spontaneity seems all good and fun in movies, that is not the reality of life. For a trip this large, eight days across the country, six states with specific stops in each one, you have to realize it takes some planning. You have to think about what you want to accomplish each day, where you should end up, where you are going to sleep, how to keep on schedule, and how to factor in changing time zones into your equation. Plus, if you are like Tressie and I and plan a road trip in the middle of tourist season, be prepared for traffic, not being able to find parking spots, and people literally wherever you go.

5. I was taught creative thinking

When you plan a road trip for almost a month, it makes it seem like nothing is up to question. Everything is planned, booked, and done. So when you are suddenly faced with a road closed, a flat tire, a hotel loses your booking, and the weather does not cooperate, you have to improvise.

6. I was taught to step out of my comfort zone

When you are forced to ask strangers for help in the middle of rural Colorado on how to change a flat, eat random food from different cultures, hold rattlesnakes, and drive down the mountains downshifting for the first time (screaming all the way), it forces you to become more relaxed with the flow of things. Not everything will always go your way.

7. I was taught how to make memories to last a lifetime

Some of my favorite impact memories include being face to face with a giraffe from a Skyfari at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo, watching Tressie's reaction to seeing mountains for the first time, and holding rattlesnakes and taking a Pink Jeep Tour in Sedona, Arizona. Some of the small moments make the happiest memories too, like singing along to country blasting through my Kia Soul's speakers, celebrating when we found those little flavored coffee creamers at every hotel's breakfast, and watching Tressie excitedly pass someone on a one lane road for the first time.

Thank you, Tressie, for sharing what is still one of the best weeks of my life.