On this day: Anniversary of a major life change. Or the road less traveled.

One year ago today I boarded a plane in San Diego, flew to Seattle, hopped in a car, and began the cross-country road trip that was the first step in a very scary bold move from the West Coast to the Gulf Coast.

Hubby (then: fee-ahn-sey') had just wrapped up graduate school in Seattle, and we were about to spend a week driving, running, and eating our way across the vast United States from the top left corner of the map to the bottom right en route to our new home.

We plotted our trip to get as much sight-seeing and family-visiting in as we could. At the end of the trip, I'd have enough time for a one-day glimpse of the place I'd spend the next 2 or 3 years. Then I'd return to San Diego for a couple of months to tie up loose ends. I'd repeat the cross-country trek again in November, and by December I'd turn in my old apartment keys and have a Florida driver's license.

What was I thinking?!? I was about to spend 10 days in a car with only one other person. Cross country road trips have been known to kill even the strongest relationships. And then I was going to uproot my very comfortable (if a bit predictable) life to move to a place I had never seen before.
Cue panic attack!

Over 10 days we covered 2,900 miles on four wheels and about 20 miles on our two feet. We ran almost every morning before hitting the road. We ran in Missoula, MT, Yellowstone National Park, Fort Collins, CO, Fort Worth, TX, and eventually at our new home in Pensacola, FL.

The running helped to stave off the inevitable butt-numbness that comes with long-haul road trips. It also gave us a chance to really see some of the places we might have missed if we had only been looking out a car window. We dove in beyond the parking lots in Yellowstone and saw amazing geothermal pyrotechnics - not to mention bison and bears. We startled a deer eating her breakfast in Colorado. We got rained on in Pensacola. (Note to my future self: This will happen. Often.)

After each morning's run, we'd shower, change, and hit the road. We counted state license plates. (Never did see Hawaii.) We counted antelope. (My revelation of the trip: Antelope really do roam in Wyoming!) We counted miles. (Miles traveled. Miles run. Miles left to go.)

This photo from Missoula sums up how I felt about the whole trip: My back turned on the familiar. Running headlong down a trail I've never been on. Having no idea where I'm going. Loving the rush of a new adventure. Being just a little bit totally terrified that I have no idea what I'm doing here.

But life, like running, is measured in the miles we travel. Not the ones we don't.