This is a video edit I made for the road trip I did from Rochester, New York to Mountain View, California from December 29th, 2025 to January 8th, 2026.
Backstory 👨🎓
I had just graduated from University of Rochester in December 2025, and I was excited to start my software internship at Midi Health in Palo Alto, California. The only thing left to do was to move all of my belongings and importantly, my car, back to the west coast—I was moving back into my mom and dad’s house since they were living in Mountain View, which is incredibly close to where I’d work at Midi! Overall, the trip was invigorating, and it opened my eyes to the incredible expanse of land that exists in our country. Below is a brief overview of the trip (written in the past tense unfortunately, because with the business of transitioning to a new life and a new job, I hadn’t been able to write this blog post until today, March 7th, 2026).
Rochester → Chicago 🏙️
The journey almost didn’t start on time. My flight from Florida back to Rochester was cancelled due to weather, and my backup flight with a connection through Newark was also cancelled—though at least that time I was already in Newark. I ended up hopping on a Greyhound bus that pulled into Rochester around 2am. Not exactly the smooth send-off I had envisioned. The one thing I’m still kicking myself about: I was right there on the East Coast, steps from the Atlantic Ocean, and I didn’t touch it. If I had, I could have truly claimed a coast-to-coast journey by land (the bus counts as driving, I’ve decided). But it would have been a stressful scramble to catch my bus, so I let it go. After a rushed morning of packing up the last of my belongings in Rochester, I hit the road on the 30th, baked ziti from the fridge in hand, car loaded with everything I owned, and pointed west.
The first leg of the trip brought me through the Midwest and into Chicago for New Year’s Eve, where I stayed with my friend Mitch in his Lincoln Park apartment. Mitch, Anthony, Dylan, and Leo were all there, and we had an absolute blast. We had bought tickets to a bar crawl around Wrigleyville to ring in the new year—but we got so enthusiastically carried away pregaming in Mitch’s apartment that by the time midnight approached, we had only managed to make it to two of the bars. Nobody seemed to mind. The night was loud, ridiculous, and exactly what a New Year’s Eve should be. Nearly everyone paid for it the next morning. I somehow escaped unscathed, which I’m attributing entirely to my disciplined water intake on the drive over.
Chicago → Salt Lake City 🏔
After Chicago, I continued west with Dylan, eventually arriving in Salt Lake City where he and Leo were living while attending the University of Utah. The drive was mostly flat, but there was something eye-opening about watching the landscape slowly transform from the cornfields of Iowa to the high desert of Wyoming. Dylan also introduced me to Raising Cane’s for the first time somewhere in Iowa, which felt like a rite of passage I had somehow missed. It was great to see where he and Leo had set up their lives, and Dylan and I made the most of the visit. We hit a local climbing gym one afternoon with a few of his friends and celebrated his birthday at a bar in the city. The highlight, though, was a ski day at Solitude—we packed paninis, brought a joint, and spent the day flying down the mountain. Between the skiing and the climbing, I felt genuinely alive in a way that only happens when you’re using your body, surrounded by mountains, in good company.
Salt Lake City → Mountain View 🌅
For the final stretch, my mom Kalee flew in and joined me for the drive the rest of the way to California. With her along, the pace shifted—less of a cross-country haul and more of a leisurely ride. We stopped at Zion National Park, where the canyon views were jaw-dropping and I may have coaxed her up a rock scramble slightly beyond her comfort zone (she made the right call coming back down). We swung through Las Vegas, had an incredible lunch at a lounge on the strip, and then made our way to Death Valley, where we caught a sweeping sunset and stayed for stargazing that night under one of the most open, star-filled skies I’ve ever seen. And finally, on January 8th, we caught Highway 1 along the Pacific Coast—and I jumped into the ocean at sunset. Coast to coast, car and all.
Overall, it was a strange and grounding experience to watch the entire country roll by through my windshield, and to arrive home knowing exactly how far I’d come—I’m glad that I got to mark this important transition in my life with such an enchanting trip, and I can’t wait to see what the next chapter holds.
