I drove to Fort Collins, CO by myself in 2005. I took a scenic route over three days driving eight to ten hours a day. (My favorite side-trip was a six-hour drive through a long section of Sawtooth National Recreation Area. I saw cows and mountains and Wyoming.) A friend of mine from grade school lived in Fort Collins while his fiance worked on her medical residency there, and they invited me to visit. He had recently graduated from Notre Dame's MFA program, and I was interested in talking to him more about it, and writing in general. Also I wanted to visit the New Belgium brewery.

I stayed in their apartment for a few days with a horrible cold and met some of their friends. I burned them a copy of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. We spent a day in Rocky Mountain National Park. My friend broke my glove compartment because I had it locked to prevent casual theft in hotel parking lots but he just thought it was hard to open. (Turns out the lock on the glove compartment of a 2002 Subaru isn't worth shit.)

By the time those few days were over, I was incredibly homesick. The direct route home was 1254 miles and I did it all in one day, over about seventeen hours. It remains one of the stupidest things I have ever done. It felt great to be home.