3674 miles: driving across the US
it's exactly what it says on the tin
May 22 - 30 2026 was a rather strange time in my life. I've had the idea to do an extended road trip across the US for a while, but between classes and my upcoming internship, I hadn't had time to plan out what it would look like. Closing out the week of May 18, I had pretty much confirmed my internship and had a week left of dead space. As I'd be returning to Singapore immediately following my internship, I didn't have any other window in the foreseeable future for such exploits. So I went, renting a one-way rental that cost way too much and booking a flight back from JFK with my friend and housemate Warren tagging along (as a passenger).
Would I do it again? Probably over 3 weeks instead of 1. Driving for 8-9 hours a day is a rather exhausting ordeal, and I didn't see much other than the landscape and a few stops here and there. I did get to truly experience how vast the US is, as I covered the length of Singapore many times over without exiting even a county. The variety of landscapes, people, driving etiquette and weather was something I had only known at a surface level before.
The only non-city stop made was at Mount Rushmore National Memorial, which was a rather surreal experience. The faces carved into the granite cliffs embody American exceptionalism in a very literal and visceral way that pictures don't really do justice. Before seeing it in person, Rushmore honestly felt absurd as a concept, and I actually thought it was a photoshopped image the first time I saw it. Unfortunately, all I have to offer here is another picture, which surely does not do the monument justice.
Driving the stretch through South Dakota, I was caught in a midwest thunderstorm, barely able to see beyond the brief moments where brilliant arcs of lightning illuminated the world. The car was caught in the high crosswind, making control even harder. At some point, the lane-keeping assist threw an error, lighting up the dashboard as water clogged the sensors. The rain felt like it was falling in puddles rather than drops. In this, I was still breathtaken by the scale of the storm, the land around me and the violent beauty of the lightning.
I might expand this post in the future, but I really just wanted to write something down and help myself get over the inertia of not writing, so I'm posting this first. Unfortunately or otherwise, I don't have any great or coherent conclusion to end off this particular section of my travels, so it stands just as its own fragment of thoughts. If anything, I'd say that really, you can just do things. Especially if they're half-baked and kind of stupid, perfect is ever the enemy of done.