We walked along the Atlantic coast at midnight to setup camp near a small coastal town called Carolina Beach, North Carolina. Soon we'll be walking along the roadside with our thumbs out, hitching toward the Pacific.

Although I knew our alarm would wake us up at 5:30 in the morning, just in time for the sunrise, I stayed up passed 2 AM to listen to the waves crash under a three-quarter moon.

It is really hard to leave behind the people I love for such a long time, so I've been hovering somewhere between melancholy and excitement for weeks now. Then the clouds broke releasing moonlight that glinted on the ocean waves. As I watched the waves swell and break on the shore, I wondered what other beauty my eyes are about to see and remembered why I do this: a love of the unknown. My excitement finally began to grow. We stayed one more night on the North Carolina coast, and I'm now ready to head west.

And so it begins.