The stars aligned when I planned this trip.

I was procrastinating on my capstone project and was looking at different trip ideas for after I graduated. I happened to stumble upon an available campsite at a beautiful campground in Big Sur. I was a little hesitant because it was only available for one night for the rest of the year, a Sunday.. the day after my graduation. I scoured the internet for other campsites but everything was booked from March until November.

The appeal of the campsite really kept me interested though. Reviewers highly recommended the campground because it was located right on a cliff off the PCH with open skies and the sounds of waves crashing against the side of the mountain. One reviewer mentioned that it was a great place to take photos of the Milky Way, especially on a night with no moon. This really peaked my interest. Peter had been wanting to take photos of the Milky Way and, after our last failed attempt, I knew this would be a great opportunity.

I checked a moon calendar to see how full and bright the moon would be that Sunday night. Lo and behold, there wasn’t going to be a moon that night. I immediately booked the site without even consulting Peter.

In my head, I had tossed my capstone project off the Big Sur cliff.

I went into full vacation-planning mode and booked the rest of our trip. I booked two other campsites: one along the way up to Big Sur and another one for when we made our way back down to LA.

I considered renting my dream car, a convertible, but it was very pricey and more than I wanted to spend on a rental. But after hours of searching, I found a wonderful site similar to a car’s version of AirBnB and ended up renting a beautiful white Camaro convertible.

All that was left was getting through the last few weeks of school and two big capstone presentations. Back to work I went.