In less than 12 hours I will be leaving in pursuit of knowledge and adventure. My intention is to write about a myriad of topics over the next four months. The main focus is gathering information that will help inform the direction the DAT program update follows. If you haven’t done so already, you can look back at the test run that I did this past summer by clicking on the 2019 button. I must admit I did fail to write the epilogue, so this will serve as that!

I learned a lot from the summer 2019 trip. I have decided to go no more than 250 miles per day, give or take 50 miles. Last time I pushed 350 miles regularly. The days were longer then, so in order to make the most of the sights this time, it is best I limit myself. I figure this will give me at least 5 hours at each destination and around 5 hours of driving where I can stop and practice my photographic skills without feeling rushed. I would like to donate whatever images I take to NVCC, in particular the DAT students, so that there is a library of royalty free images and video that students can utilize in their projects and portfolios. The question will be; where do we store them?

The fall DAT 116 Interactive Design independent study students gave me the opportunity to use a self-contained blogging site. A very talented student, Jas Pindzic, offered up the idea to redesign the website so it would be database driven. (The original site: nvcc-dat.com/2019trip, which I broke the gallery and didn’t have time to fix it on the road.) With the help of Christian Kutzy, the other independent study student and one of our DAT work study students Sarah Fildes, the site took shape and morphed into what you see now. Jas’ experience with this medium and his drive to learn more offered everyone involved more of an education than I would normally have expected. Many things I learned from this experience have helped me develop questions for universities and businesses as to what they are looking for and need from their future workforce.

Each day I will either be meeting with someone (from a university or business) or enjoying what the country has to offer. Once the sun goes down, wherever I am, I plan to dedicate an hour or so to blogging and uploading and another hour or two to redesigning the curriculum. If I don’t have access to Wi-Fi or data, the uploading will happen as soon as I do! I will probably reserve weekends to get to laundry and have some “off” time. I don’t think I mentioned this; most of the trip I will be car camping, in a Prius. I will be sure to comment on both the pros and cons.

I have been planning this trip for months now. I know it will have some hiccups in the giddy-up. I will need to go with the flow. Feel free to track me on a map (I think the DAT Club is doing it. There is a map outside the L303 classroom.) You’ll get where I have been at least a day after I have been there. I don’t know how it works, but you can comment on my blog posts. You may have to sign in and wait for me to accept it; I honestly can’t remember what Jas said I had to do regarding that. If that is too much, I will be posting some things on Instagram (dat_nvcc), Twitter (@DAT_NVCC), and Facebook (Digital Arts Technology at NVCC) so you can follow me on one of those.

I do miss my DAT family and so many people at NVCC already, but I am really excited for this opportunity. Thankfully I have many family and friends at home taking care of things that are making this journey possible. I hope you stay tuned and wish me luck!