Roho Road Trips

With Covid, many students and families had to change their summer plans. Whether it was travel, summer camps, or internships, almost everything got canceled, modified, or moved online. Even just from hearing from my friends, everyone had a story about how their summer plans changed. I noticed one consistency, though, from the students I talked to. It seems like a lot of families turned to a safer way to travel—road trips. I decided to ask around Rowland Hall and find out what people’s summers should’ve looked like and what they did instead.

My family had plans to go visit family back east and in Ireland, which both got canceled because we couldn’t fly. I was devastated; both the trips had been planned months prior, and I was really looking forward to them. Despite our sadness over the cancelation of our original plans, we decided to make this summer one of many road trips; my parents and I were all working, but we took a couple of long weekends to get out of town for a few days. We went up to Yellowstone and the surrounding Montana area, to the San Rafael Swell in central Utah, and we drove up to the San Juan Islands outside of Seattle for a week. Though the drives were long, we had so much fun seeing these places. It’s so cool to see how many unique places are drivable from Salt Lake. As disappointed as I was that we had to cancel our original trips, we never would’ve thought to do these road trips otherwise. Since I am a senior, I loved seeing places near Utah that once I go to college, I won’t have easy access to anymore.

Augie Bown, a senior at Rowland Hall, had planned this summer to intern at a spine clinic. Luckily for him, it wasn’t canceled but instead modified for social distancing. Augie found the internship to be “a great experience, and [he] learned so much about being a doctor!” Additionally, like many, his family had travel plans—to St. George—that had to be rearranged. His family ended up cooking in and doing more outdoor activities compared to crowded, indoor ones. “This enhanced my summer experience in a different way since it was fun to cook spaghetti sauce with my sister on vacation,” Augie said of St. George, and in general, “my family and I became much more attached to the outdoors since things like hiking are one of the safest activities to do during Covid.” Although things have changed, Augie’s family still found ways to bond and make new experiences together.

In general, most Rowland Hall students had to cancel or rearrange their plans. Talking with some advisories, I found that almost everyone had trips planned, from L.A. to London. Everyone was disappointed by their change of plans, but, as Gabe Andrus put it, they “adapted and made the most of it.” Additionally, everyone instead got to explore places nearby. Students like Regan Hodson, Beca Damico, Gabe Andrus, Izzy Rust, and Kate Warren explored Yellowstone, Capitol Reef, Wyoming, Idaho, and Colorado, respectively. Despite canceling amazing experiences around the world, students got to find fun new adventures closer to home.

According to the New York Post, it isn’t just with Rowland Hall students who have been traveling more by car. Their poll found that “coronavirus has resulted in 44 percent of American drivers taking more road trips this summer.” It’s interesting to see the creative ways people still made their summer fun. We were able to have new experiences—or cultivate new interests—and explore new places that we might not have seen otherwise.