I leaned my head against the passenger-side seat of my twilight blue Ford Focus and let my thoughts wander back to the events that led up to this moment. It was a Sunday night in January; Mom and I had just pulled out of the driveway, beginning our 700-or-so-mile trip from the Los Angeles area to Arcata, in distant northern California, and Humboldt State University, my new school and home. My belongings were in boxes piled in the back, along with my new laptop computer—a graduation/Christmas gift—while my cell phone—also a Christmas gift—charged beside me.

It was dark outside as we passed Dodger Stadium and the Los Angeles Zoo, landmarks I always looked for while traveling up U.S. Interstate 5. The cat faces on the culverts of the Los Angeles River to my right were cloaked in darkness, but they were there. Someone long ago had painted them and when I was little, Barbara—Mom's younger sister and my aunt—would point them out to me whenever we drove to the zoo. Now, years later, their smiling faces are marred by the hideous scrawls and scribbles of graffiti, but I pictured their whiskered faces grinning at me as I silently said goodbye.

This was a turning point in my life. I wouldn't be living under my mom's roof anymore; neither would I go to my dad's house every other weekend, as I had been doing since my parents' divorce 12 years earlier. If I was hurt or sick there would be no one there to make sure I went to the doctor. In short, I would have to learn how to function on my own.

My college experience began in fall of 2001 when I attended Cerritos College, a community college in Norwalk, Calif. My chosen major was English, but I was also interested in journalism. I spent my last semester there writing for the campus newspaper, the Talon Marks, and even served as news editor.

I was leaving a lot behind. For one there was my job at Knott's Berry Farm—not a thing I would terribly miss after working there for so long. Also there were those I had grown close to over the years; my friends, family and animals. I wondered if they were thinking of me as much as I thought of them.

Mom and I switched places when we passed the dark coasters of Six Flags Magic Mountain, just before the Grapevine in the Tehachapi Mountains. Having received my driver's license not too long before, Mom had to teach me how to use the cruise control as we continued to climb up the steep mountains, which separate the Los Angeles basin from the San Joaquin Valley.

Things were rocky at first. Every time I tried using the cruise control, the gas pedal would sink under my foot, as the car reached speeds of 80, 85 and 90 miles per hour. I accidentally cut off a truck while passing one of the many 18-wheelers that traverse the I-5 like blood cells, delivering their goods to the world, and I could hear the driver curse as I got in front of him. My driving had become much better when we reached the summit of the Grapevine. There we found ourselves mired in a thick layer of fog, which deepened as we continued our descent into the Valley. I had successfully managed to pass the junction between the I-5 and state Highway 99 without finding myself headed towards Bakersfield, when Mom and I switched back.

I drifted in and out of sleep for a while thinking about my destination, which I was anxious and reluctant to reach. One thing I was afraid of was that my final transcript from Cerritos wouldn't arrive by the February deadline and I would then be forced to leave and come back home. Being separated from my mother for the first time wasn't appealing either.

We left the I-5 and fog behind us and headed toward U.S. Highway 101. Our destination that night was San Jose; Mom booked a room through Priceline.com or Expedia or some other online service, but with no idea where the motel was. It was early in the morning and we had made about 5,000 U-turns, according to Mom, when we located the place. We arrived exhausted and didn't hit the road again until noon that day, our route taking us toward San Francisco.

On August 13, 1965, a new band, Jefferson Airplane, made its debut at San Francisco's first folk night club, the Matrix. It was with their strange, music belting out of the CD player that we made our way into the City by the Bay.

If we had known, we could have bypassed it by taking the Richmond Bridge to San Rafael. But it was too late, and we were caught in the tangled web of cable cars and one-way streets, trying desperately to follow the signs that indicated we were still on Highway 101. I took the driver’s seat again just after entering the city, and had to deal with delivery trucks stopping in front of our car and pedestrians darting across the street without warning. Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge was fun. Driving at freeway speeds after the stop-and-go of the city was nice, but it was another traffic nightmare trying to negotiate the windy road and keep up with everyone else on the other side of the bridge, so I let Mom drive again.

It was raining as we traveled through Sonoma County. I could see the first redwoods, a smaller foreshadow of their immense cousins further north, shrouded in a mist that seemed to come from the trees themselves. It was almost as if we were traveling through a fantasy realm. The rolling mist, created by the rain, hung like curtains and spilled down hills, whose green was made brighter by the gray contrast of the clouds.

After dinner in Ukiah, we entered what is known as the Redwood Empire. After a brief stop in Willits—Mom’s attention being arrested by a glass shop which was closed for the night—and with roads slick with the rain, the car windows fogged up all of a sudden and Mom couldn't see where she was going. On a single-lane mountain highway with an 18-wheeler right behind us, we were turning on the heater, then the air conditioner, and then rolling down the windows frantically so Mom could see where she was going and we wouldn't drive off the road or get rammed in the rear. To our relief, turning on the air worked and the windows cleared up as we crossed the Humboldt County line.

Our final destination was Arcata, another 80 miles from the county line. Mom decided to make a pit stop and turned off the freeway in Myers Flat, close to the Avenue of the Giants, a 31-mile pleasure trip into old-growth redwoods. After making a wrong turn while trying to find the freeway again, we began to travel down one of the scenic routes in that area. Because the rain had stopped, Mom opened the moon roof and I reclined my seat. Above our little car, the redwoods looked down upon me from their lofty heights. Somehow their presence was soothing and my fears and worries were all forgotten. I just felt lucky to be able to live so close to these gentle giants, these beings that seemed to be telling me that everything would be fine.

We arrived in Arcata at 9 that night and checked into our second motel—one that had a broken toilet and a musty locker room smell. The next few days were spent getting me settled into my dorm with all the things I would need, going through the orientation program and enrolling in classes. Mom left on Saturday, six days after beginning the journey, and I was left standing in the parking lot watching her drive away. When she left I felt an emptiness that I had never known before and for a while had no idea what to do with myself. That last Saturday was the most difficult part of my trip, having to deal with my mother being gone. But I got over it.

With the anxiety and energy a new semester always brings, I found myself sinking comfortably into the new routine of my new life.