Cross-Continent Trip

This was written so long after the actual trip that certain things might not agree with the actual events during the trip. - Hong (Yeah, I've been seeing too many legal craps here in the States. :))

The Prologue

I guess the spring was getting on to me, maybe to all of us.

One typical Californian sunny day, while stuck in a cubicle with no outside view as usual, I got a call from Sudong in Boston, MA. We go way back to our freshman year at Seoul National University. Ever since he was stuck at Boston for the next two years of his life, we've been calling up each other more frequently than before.

We've been occasionally discussing about doing some traveling together, but this time he mentioned Florida. I think he knew a sunbae who was going to Florida for a conference, and he asked Sudong to come see him in Florida.

For some reason (probably because of the work schedule, as usual), the Florida plan was canceled. But this time, we decided to make time and just do it (as Nike would say). Since we weren't sure if we can travel together after this chance, we decided to do go extreme: cross-countrying across the North America by car.

We had another classmate living in the States, Yeo-Girl, who had gone to Stanford with me. He has been working at Tandem, living in Mountain View. He was about to change his job, so he had a spare time to share with us.

So we decided that Yeo-Girl and I should fly over to Boston where Sudong lives, rent a nice van and drive back to Sunnyvale, and Sudong can fly back home. Also, we arbitrarily decided that Sudong should be in charge of the supplies, Yeo-Girl in recording the events, and I in navigational details.

Travel routes: planned (yellow), actual (red), wishful thinking (green)

So, my original plan is marked in yellow on the map above. I wanted to explore the southern U.S., which has interested me for a long time. Besides, all I heard about the northern path is that there is nothing much to see except for the horizon. However, all this changed when we left Boston. By the way, the route in green is what I would like to try... someday.

We were worried about getting lost in the desert for example, so I even bought a hand-held GPS receiver which can be connected to a PC. This was a cool device which helped us navigate in New York, but its usefulness was somewhat limited because the GPS receiver had to be in an open space to receive the signals from the satellites and because the battery life of the laptop that Yeo-Girl brought was rather short.

Mixed with the excitement and the anxiety, we were coming close to the day of adventure.

The Wallet

The time has come. The flight to Boston was an evening one (I forgot the departure time), so Yeo-Girl came with his roommate, Jong Yoon (the same guy from my L.A. trip) by my house to pick me up.

Jong Yoon dropped us at SFO. We had about an hour left, but decided to check ourselves in early and go sit somewhere near the gate. I got my ticket and ID out and was ready to go to the counter when I heard Yeo-Girl say "Oh, sh*t!." Since Yeo-Girl was known for leaving things around, I can't say that I was really surprised. He told me that he couldn't find his wallet. He said he searched his luggage, but couldn't find it. He thought that it must have been dropped in Jong Yoon's car. They ask you to show them an ID when getting the boarding ticket, it was a problem.

So, what can we do... First, we called Jong Yoon at work and home, but he couldn't have gotten back that soon. Then, we called him on his cellular phone, but it was turned off. We couldn't go back and come back because we didn't have enough time. So, we thought, at worst, I would go alone because we've already paid for all the tickets and took vacations.

But you know what? After about 10~15 minutes, Yeo-Girl said he found it in some obscure place (I forget where). Oh, well, what a fun way to start a trip! We left another message to Jong Yoon, got on the plane and headed for the other coast.