This past day was honestly one of the best days I could have ever asked for. I’ve genuinely struggled the past year or so dealing with letting friendships go and being too afraid to reach out to see how they have been doing.
These friendships didn’t end poorly, it’s just our lives went in different directions and we just slowly stop talking. Life got busy and unfortunately, that was the result of it. Thankfully, I got to see some old friends I hadn’t seen or talked to in years on my fourth day.
We didn’t plan any of these visits before I left WNY, and that made it that much more special.
The first visit was with my friend Cory from Wisconsin. He’d been following along with my travels and reached out to see if I was going through a town near him. Neither of us has seen each other since 2017, and we are nearing 10 years since we first met. I learned Cory is about to be a day like tomorrow, and he is about to start a new job. We got to let each other know what we have been up to in life, and that meant so much to me.
We were also joined by my dad’s old roommate from his time at the FBI National Academy, and it was incredible to see him as well.
This trip has just really solidified to me that I shouldn’t be afraid or worried to reach out to someone I was once close with. This is obviously still an issue internally, but this certainly makes it a lot easier. I always worried that they would be upset or just wouldn’t care anymore. It’s nice to know those internal fears aren’t always true.
That was proven beyond true when I reached my final destination for the day in Minnesota. Schweicks and I were super close friends when we played hockey together from 2016-2018. He was my closest friend, and unfortunately, once we stopped playing together and life got crazy we stopped talking all together.
We last saw each other 5 or so years ago, and really haven’t talked much at all since that point.
It wasn’t until I was getting lunch with our old friend Fridge (from day 2 recap) it clicked that Schweicks lives in Minnesota now. I decieded to text him and see where he was at, and it was like the stars aligned. He now lives like 10 minutes from where I planned on spending the night.
So I got to see him, and meet his girlfriend of 4 years (shows how long it’s unfortunately been). But we got to sit and hang out like old times and just catch up on where life has taken us.
I thought seeing all these cool places would be the highlight of my journey, but moments like that are by far and away my favorite. Schweicks was one of the closest friends I have ever really had, so being able to rekindle this friendship will be something super important to me, and something I am so thankful for.
It’s exactly what I needed to feel comfortable reaching out to old friends and just see how they are doing. Even though friendships change and aren’t what they were doesn’t mean that they are gone entirely.
Between this day, and my weekend in Michigan with Garth, I realized I still have so many incredible people in my life, and I need to do better at staying in contact.
The drive
I had such high hopes for my drive from the upper peninsula Michigan to Minnesota, but it was such a letdown.
Just endless fields and poor roads were on my horizon. While this did give me a good feeling of being home, it just was not my drive through Michigan at all.
The roads in Wisconsin somehow made me thankful for the diabolical and bumpy roads of Pittsburgh.
For those reasons, I will have to give this ride a 4.9 (although if we counted cheese curds toward this, it would be a 10. I ate so many of them).