[Editor’s note: this is the first piece in a multi-part series]

The Call That Started It All

I remember playing a football game on my Xbox one cold afternoon in my college apartment just outside Boston when I got a call from my dad.

“Blake, you should take your plane and travel across the whole country this summer.”

It was just like that. I loved the idea but did not grasp how big of a challenge this would be.

My initial thought was “one to two nights each city, one week Gulf Coast, one Pacific Coast, one week northern U.S., then a week to make it back to Florida.”

Man, was I wrong.

This was the kind of thing I had always wanted to do, but I’d never thought of doing it on this scale, nor at this age. I certainly didn’t realize how much it would put my skills to the test.

Though I c

See Full Page