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This is really bad. Its supposed to be a short speech about a journey you took at some point, and thus, had a word limit. This is what caused this piece to turn out to be such a lousy bit of writing. I also wasn't too keen on the subject of a journey to begin with, and we had to try and emulate the style of another writer. I really don't like this essay.

A Journey

A couple of summers ago, I went down to my Grandparents house in Texas, so I could work at their store as I had done the summer before. I would fly down, meet my Grandparents, and then live with them for the summer, going about life as usual, no differently than I would have done at home. This time, however, my Grandparents and I took a trip out to North Dakota, to attend the wedding of a relative whom I had last seen when I was probably five years old. We drove up to North Dakota, passing through miles and miles of endless, plain, flat farmland, occasionally passing through a small town with a population of 600. I remember that the only thing that kept me occupied was spending most of the driving time pondering just how many people it would take to eat all of the crops that were passing me and pouring over the most miniscule details of the map. After a second day of travel, we had left the farmlands for the badlands of South Dakota. We stopped for a break in front of the Missouri River, then headed along. At long last, we reached our destination, a small city, the name of which I have forgotten, which lay in the midst of all North Dakota. We stayed the night there, and the next day set out again toward the farm of my Great Aunt Alvina, my Grandfather�s aunt. We met her, and her sons, and they introduced us to their farm, and told us of all the hardships of farming. For my Grandparents, it was a reunion of sorts; for me, it was a glimpse into a never-ending cycle � though they were nice people, their life was so simple it was hard for me to understand it. We traveled yet again, this time to My Grandfather�s city of birth. We drove around to the general location of where his childhood home used to be, but he could not remember exactly where it had stood. Those houses looked awfully small and similar even to me. We drove up Main Street, as my Grandparents talked of how this building used to be a such and such, and of how this doctor used to practice there, and so on. We ate lunch in the only eatery we could find, and as I noticed a group of local kids � my age � I wondered how they could live with residing in such a small, isolated town. I never could come to grips with that. At long last, we arrived in Stanton, North Dakota, at the farm where the wedding would take place. It was owned by Ray, a distant uncle of mine, and the father of the groom. The wedding itself was small, and colloquial; the family dogs were the ring bearers, and a local Native American played his flute for us. After the wedding ended, we stayed at Ray�s house, and I learned much about his life. He was quite an interesting man. He showed us his farm and talked about farming in general. This was nothing new for my grandparents, for me, it was all a new experience. What made the trip truly worthwhile, however, was that at night, Ray brought us out to look at the stars. For the first time in my life, I saw the Milky Way Galaxy. I saw thousands of stars � something that I had simply never before remembered seeing. I left Ray�s farm, and North Dakota, perhaps more humble than when I had entered. I saw a way of life that was slowly fading, or perhaps lives that were fading as well.

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