Crossroads (noun): A point at which a crucial decision must be made that will have far reaching consequences.
Risk taking, space flight, life as a soldier and finding one’s self: all themes explored in this memoir written by local author Aaron Lauritsen, and if I might add, done so quite well with openness and honesty.
In 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip! Mr. Lauritsen travels around Canada and the United States visiting seven of 10 Canadian provinces and 38 states covering just less than 30,000 miles (that’s just less than 48,000 kilometers).
The impetus for this journey, as stated by the author, was a crossroads in his life and his decision to do what many people dream of doing. He put his troubles “in the rearview mirror and headed out the door.”
In the hopes of finding himself again he just left, without any real plan, without a map, and taking roads less traveled where few have been before. The author takes the reader on a journey of self discovery interlaced with personal memories of bad times and good, with accounts of history from experience and study that are at some times unmistakably relatable.
Of note is his visualization of what it would have truly been like to be there on the day that John F. Kennedy was shot: from a sniper’s point of view (Mr. Lauritsen was a sniper during his time in the Canadian Army), could Lee Harvey Oswald have done it?
With the mantra “explore, experience and then push beyond,” Lauritsen sets off in search of the adventure of a lifetime. While trying sky-diving in Florida over Cape Canaveral, sleeping outside overnight in New York for tickets to Saturday Night Live and surfing in Tofino among many other experiences, the author found out who he was and what he wanted from life. My favourite part of this memoir is that the author ties his new experiences to the past in such seamless fashion that the reader believes that they are on the journey as well.
As a first effort, I say “Bravo Mr. Lauritsen!” With time and experience I believe that the flow and ease of Lauritsen’s story telling will develop and mature.
He is well on his way to a Stuart McLean-esque style.
I give 100 Days Drive a 3.5/5.
