I felt like throughout the trip I learned the most in the car ride to Butte. This fourteen and
half hour car ride was by far the longest single road trip I had ever been on. It was made even
longer by the fact that we were driving very slowly and didn’t seem to be making any progress
because everything looked the exact same under the blanket of snow. Not to mention the girls
sang along with their iPods the ENTIRE time! And the fact that we were late to lunch and
hungry made everything even worse.
But it is through these experiences that we learn more about other people and ourselves.
I got to know some of the members of my car who I hadn’t hung out with very much this year a
lot better. We watched movies together, played games, had wrestling matches in the back seat,
slept, made up nick names for each other, shared snacks, and the boys even started to sing along
with the girls. The night before, I had dreaded this car ride thinking that everyone would be tired
from their early wake up and miserable and when I heard about the snow at the pass I thought it
would be even worse. And at first this was the case as we climbed the Cascades and approached
the pass. But by the time we had reached Burger King everybody had a huge smile on their face
and we laughed in the face of the snow falling in Butte.
The car ride went from the sacrifice we would all have to make to go on this awesome
trip to one of the highlights of the entire week. And I think if we hadn’t had the bonding
experience by making it through the road trip the rest of the week would have been really
awkward and not as much fun. I wouldn’t mind waking up at four in the morning for another
road trip like that!