First to go if there is a government shutdown!
taosnews.com
From Carlsbad National Park to the Gila Cliff Dwellings outside of Silver City and from El Morro National Monument to the Manhattan Project National Historic Park in Los Alamos, Meyer is slowly but surely checking out 417 of the "most beautiful and culturally relevant places in America."
"I joke that it's me and the retired people. But I don't think it's millennials' fault if we're not spending enough time outside. It's partially the fault of our workaholic culture," Meyer said. "When young people start a job that has two weeks of vacation, making only $31,000 a year but with $100,000 of student debt right out of college, you don't have time to go traveling to these places, even if they're only a day's drive away."
Meyer spent four years saving money for the trip and planning out the logistics of thousands of miles on the road.
He also spent those four years trying to pitch the trip to outdoors companies in order to pick up funding. Even though he was "very out in [his] own life," he kept his sexual orientation a little more under wraps "because the outdoor and travel industry is very heteronormative."
Meyer said, "The only ads you see are gay people going to beaches and bars."
But from the day Meyer set out and started sharing his story, he started getting emails from queer park rangers, teenagers and 100-year-old men who told him, "'Thank you for doing this. We felt like our voices have never been heard before, but now, through your journey, we feel like our stories are being told,'" he said.
So Meyer threw financial caution to the wind and let loose his story as an out-and-proud young, gay Christian.
