It’s the first week of Spring and my mind is on getting the hell out of here. There’s no legitimate reason – during Spring wherever you are is likely as good as anywhere else; shit renews everywhere – but it’s not just the surroundings, it’s the act of moving. For the next six months, days are longer than nights: hibernation is over and my legs need stretching.

Years ago, my wanderlust would be satisfied by Spring Break. Indeed, for me it was more about the travel than the destination. My freshman year, a friend of mine hopped in my 94 Saturn and drove almost 4,000 miles. We met a girl for some turkey bacon in West Virginia and left the next morning for New Orleans. There, it rained for two days straight, so while sitting on a stoop outside a grocery store drinking scotch from a bottle we said, “Let’s blow this joint.” We drove to Miami to visit relatives I hadn’t seen in 10 years. Along the way, we forgot to factor Alabama into our driving time, leaving us stranded in a park and ride halfway down the Florida turnpike at 1:00AM. We took nips of cough medicine to sleep, woke up the next morning, put our chairs in the upright position and drove on to Miami where we promptly fell asleep on South Beach.

From there we decided that Key West was too close to be ignored. We drove the road suspended over the Gulf, drank beer and ate conch on a pier sticking out into the water, bought two t-shirts for $5 and left. That’s still my favorite t-shirt.

We bypassed Miami on the way back leaving a message for our hosts that said, “Thanks for the pancakes.” Instead we opted for a stop at Disney World. We rented a wheelchair to get to the front of the lines and when returning it my friend stood up and walked away from the park claiming the Magic Kingdom had healed him.

We stopped to see my friend’s sister in North Carolina on the way home, sneaking into a jazz club for a few drinks merely by saying we weren’t underage. Probably because we didn’t feel underage at all. We felt like we’d just lived a lifetime without stopping for a day. That’s what movement will do for you. Ask me my favorite part of that trip and I’ll tell you coming home – because my legs were limber and tired and finally I could sit back and enjoy the weather.

- by Dan Murphy of [redacted] fame