Traveling Early and Often
I travel a lot. I’ll put miles on a car like you wouldn’t believe, and that’s always been the case for me.
Growing up in SEC country, my football-obsessed family had me on the road on a weekly basis for season long stretches in the year. I loved it, and still do. I was born and raised in the beautiful state of Alabama but, in true outlaw fashion, my team is the Tennessee Volunteers and I was lucky enough to get to go see them play A LOT.
As a family, we would load up a white Jeep Grand Cherokee every Friday evening before a Tennessee home game to head to Pappaw’s house in Ducktown, Tennessee. We would even sometimes pack our bags and hop on a plane for an away game when the Vols were playing in some cool far away land that I’d never been to before (not Tuscaloosa or Gainesville, gross).
Little did I notice it at the time, but this childhood routine shaped me. It gave me an early sense of freedom that I now realize is hard to come by, but it also gave me the inability to stay put.
Wheels Rolling
That inability to stay put is persistent in my bones. It has shaped my career choices. My first job at 18 was as a server at my local Cracker Barrel in Madison, AL. That gig was short lived and I eventually went to work with some buddies of mine laying down silt fences at construction sites and hauling pavers and rocks (IYKYK) behind my sweet ’05 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited with a Hemi in it. This hand-me-down was my first ride. It took me a year to get paid for the job and my Jeep’s engine blew not long after. I miss that thing. It was a tank. It took me from slinging sledgehammers to tossing hay bails and rolling fence at a horse ranch in Taft, TN. It even got me to and from a late-night job as a bouncer at a bar in Auburn, AL as a freshman in college.
Many memories came from driving the hell out of that old Jeep. It kept me on the move all the time.
Between Trips
Ironically the Grand Cherokee failed me on the road back to my home in Alabama — basecamp ever since I was born. I am twenty-six years old today and my basecamp remains the same.
No matter how far the road has taken me, the loops and out-and-backs always return to the same location in Madison County, AL. For me it’s a place that represents familiarity and rest, which is much needed when you’re prone to taking off on wild adventures. Trust me, it’ll make you sleep better at night when you know that you’ll end up back in that same bed when you’re 2,000 miles away without much of a plan otherwise. You just know you’ll be back.
Today I drive a ’22 Jeep Compass Trailhawk. No Hemi. It ain’t as fast as the Old Grand, but it takes me wherever I need to be and wherever I want to go.
