A Rainy Day Road Trip

By Katie McFadden

Thirty-eight states, 110 days, nearly 10,000 miles. It’s just a few stats from a wild road trip local resident Colin Kurosz embarked on with his dog, Sky, over the summer. On November 12, Kurosz, 29, had to put his two-and-a-half-year-old dog down after she lost her battle with a rare disease. While hesitant to share the story of their adventure at first, after losing Sky, Kurosz decided his story was worth telling. “I wanted to let her legacy live on in one way or another,” he said.

During a long-term relationship, Kurosz started sharing short love quotes on an X (formerly Twitter) account that he took over in 2018, rainyday. He quickly built a following of fellow romantics, more than 23,000 of them, as he kept up the simple daily habit of posting love quotes. In early 2022, the quotes briefly stopped as he was no longer in a relationship. But he had already built the following. “I had all these people that were looking forward to me writing these quotes, so I kept it going. I figured I got all these followers, I gotta do something with it, but I was going through a lot of personal issues, and I was depressed,” he said.

Kurosz decided to switch gears and tried to center Rainy Days around mental health. He soon after launched a website, Rainydays.org and being into clothing, he decided to start his own merchandise line for people who might be able to relate. “I make these clothes in hopes that people going through similar things understand that there are so many other people who go through similar things. I hope it can get popular enough where you can go out wearing a Rainy Days shirt and you see someone else wearing it and you know what that person is going through. I want people to know that they’re not alone,” he said.

Along with selling the shirts, Kurosz hoped to donate 50% of proceeds to the National Suicide Lifeline Prevention, but he wasn’t selling enough shirts to make it sustainable. Kurosz is still on a mission to build up the Rainy Days brand. He tried advertising the merch on his rainyday X account, but his followers were expecting more love quotes, so he kept that account for the love quotes and took over a rainydays Instagram account to focus on the merch.

Earlier this year, Kurosz thought he caught a break. He met a sponsor through Instagram, based in Los Angeles,  who agreed to help him promote his Rainy Days brand and teach him how to properly trademark and market it.

Still feeling depressed, dealing with personal issues, with a few grand in savings, Kurosz decided it was the perfect time to leave town for a while and pursue something he always dreamed of. “I always had the ambition to hit the road. I love traveling. I love nature and exploring, and I always wanted to go across the country. I was just going through it, and it was the perfect time to do it,” he said. It would also give him the ability to reach Los Angeles, to meet up with the man who promised to help with the brand.

But he wasn’t going alone. Kurosz’s old friend had given him a dog. He had no plans of initially taking the dog, but quickly fell in love. “She was just the cutest thing. She was my best friend,” he said of the young German Shepard-husky mix. But Sky had a few health issues. “Before the trip, I took her to the vet several times and they told me to put her down. She had this very rare disease called EPI, which means she had trouble digesting food. But I brought her to another vet who said, ‘if she’s running around and happy and eating, I wouldn’t put her down,’ so I decided to take her on the road,” he said.

Although the decision to hit the road was spontaneous, it took a little while to set the plan in motion. With plans to camp along the way, he had to outfit his car with solar panels and a cooler, but that was the least of his issues. “My car was a total piece of sh**. It was a Ford Taurus with three motors in it that blew up a bunch of times. It had no A/C, was overheating, so I had to do all this mechanical work with no experience,” he said. Kurosz did get some help from mechanic Paul Shields, who gave him some pointers and lent him some tools. “He didn’t know about the road trip until last minute. I told him I’m leaving for LA tomorrow. Paul said, ‘no f***ing way, this thing isn’t gonna make it.’”

On May 15, just as National Parks opened across the country, Colin and Sky hit the road. “I wanted to visit as many American landmarks as I possibly could. I didn’t make it very far before the radiator hose busted,” Kurosz said. “I didn’t even get to the first spot when I realized Paul might be right, I might not make it.” But much to everyone’s surprise, that first mishap was the only bump in the road, as far as car troubles went.

Kurosz made it to West Virginia. “I wanted to get away from people and it was the closest, least populated state where I wouldn’t know anyone,” he said. But along the way, Kurosz would meet some people that he now hopes to have as forever friends. “I met so many cool people on the road that I’m hopefully gonna be friends with the rest of my life,” he said.

Kurosz saw the goodness in humanity right away when wrong directions led him to someone’s home instead of a free campground in West Virginia. “They were so nice. They invited me into their house for a while and eventually pointed me down the road to the campsite,” he said. Another man he met was a military veteran named Max. “He took care of me the whole time I was there and taught me how to flyfish. He had friends around there and they had 115 acres and let my dog run around like a maniac. The amount of hospitality I received on that first stop was just unbelievable,” Kurosz said.

Next, he met a friend, Noble aka the Boba King in North Carolina, where Kurosz helped him set up a new boba truck spot. Following NC was Georgia to meet up with another friend, Stephanie. “The first time I slept over her house, she and another guy, Carlos, gave me a tattoo for free. I woke up that first morning and Carlos was blowing up dynamite in the backyard,” he said. Kurosz found he wasn’t under attack, but rather it was a normal idea of fun for his friends.

Next up was Louisiana, to meet up with a friend and photographer near New Orleans, who helps Colin run his rainydayreels Instagram account. He also hit up some of the popular tourist spots, but Kurosz says New Orleans was one of his least favorite stops. Making matters worse, while there, Chase flagged his credit card for fraud being out of state, forcing him to use Apple Pay to pay for things on his way to California.

Texas was next on the trip, where friends let Kurosz practice his second amendment. He also stopped in an old, abandoned town called Ranger, where he took photos wearing Rainy Days merch, to post to his Instagram account.

Next was a quick stop in New Mexico near Sierra Grande, a volcano that Kurosz says he didn’t get to climb. He had a bigger goal in mind. In Colorado, Kurosz and Sky made the trek to the top of Mount Elbert, the second tallest mountain in the contiguous 48 states. “It’s 14,000 feet and me and the dog did it. It took 13 and a half hours to summit and back, which is way over the average but I’m a city boy and was wearing Air Force Ones. The higher you get, the lower the oxygen gets. It was July but there’s snow on the ground, so I was slipping and sliding, and I even lost my phone at some point, but when I got to the top, I cried. I saw the most beautiful mountain range, no town, just pure wilderness,” he said. How did Sky handle it? “She beat the hell out of me. She was running all over the place, chasing muskrats in the snow,” he said. Luckily, some good Samaritans Colin passed took some photos for him, and even found his phone on their way down, leaving it on the hood of his car for him.

Then off to Utah, to explore Arches National Park. “Utah was so beautiful, by the time I got to the Grand Canyon, I was underwhelmed by it,” he said. It might not have been one of Sky’s favorites as she was attacked by coyotes near Zion State Park, an incident that caused Kurosz to lock himself out of his car to chase them off, resulting in a call to AAA and sitting on top of the car with Sky until someone could come to unlock the vehicle.

Albeit underwhelming, Kurosz did have an opportunity to camp at the Grand Canyon in Arizona, something he booked months in advance, which offered its own beauty. “The stargazing out there is unbelievable. Arizona has a law where ambient light is not allowed. I saw 20 or 30 shooting stars in one night,” he said.

A road trip wouldn’t be complete without stopping in Las Vegas, NV. Kurosz saw all the main attractions but didn’t spend any time gambling. As camping areas were scarce, he and Sky slept in the car on the street and would pop into the Golden Nugget Casino just to use the bathroom. Taking a notice to his regular bathroom trips, Kurosz befriended a curious doorman, Brian. On his last day in Vegas, Brian the doorman regifted a $20 tip to Kurosz. saying, “I hope you have a good trip and use this for something good.”

Kurosz finally made it to California. While he spent two weeks there, cruising the Pacific Coast Highway, finding secret beaches to let Sky run around and watching the 4th of July fireworks at Marina del Ray, Kurosz never got to meet up with the man in Los Angeles who promised to help him market Rainy Days. The man claimed he was out of town. Instead, Kurosz did some of his own marketing, handing out business cards on Santa Monica Pier. “I don’t think anyone followed my account just from handing out the cards but what really mattered to me is when I would connect with somebody and they would share their story and follow me and buy something,” he said.

He made stops in Oregon and Washington, but Kurosz was eager to get to Montana to see Glacier National Park. “I had been waiting the whole trip to get there and it lived up to it and then some,” he said. In Montana, he met a man in his 80s named Rob and a younger man named Bill. The three shared stories of their adventures over a few bottles of wine before Bill and Colin decided to make the hike to the Grinnell Glacier. “I almost died,” Kurosz said. After the duo reached the glacier, having somewhere to be, Bill went back to the campground. But Colin struggled. “I ran out of water and didn’t have food and there was no service there. I was begging people for water. It took me 13 hours, where it should take seven,” he said. Bill was about to recruit park rangers to go search for his new friend before Kurosz finally made it back. For the rest of the time in Montana, he got to spend time with raft guides who took him on some water adventures.

Kurosz cruised right through North Dakota, on to Minnesota where his mom offered to pay for him to stay at a hotel, only the second of the whole trip, after his near-death experience. There, Sky made herself at home as he left her in the room to go get food, only to find her eating the lunch of the guy at the front desk. “He had put her in the room 10 times, but she figured out how to open the door and kept going into the lobby. While Sky was treating herself, Kurosz had been at a restaurant, where he met an air force veteran in his 80s named Chuck Ebert, who fell outside. Kurosz wound up striking up conversation while trying to help him and Ebert invited him to sit with him while dining, so the two could exchange war stories from the Air Force and the road.

Next was Michigan, where Kurosz met up with friends, who took him for a daytrip to Chicago. He also visited a friend in Detroit, another city that wasn’t a favorite as feral dogs attacked Sky there. Luckily, she was OK. But after that incident and running low on funds, Kurosz knew it was time to head home soon.

Straight from Michigan, he drove back to North Carolina, to reunite with his new friend Max to thank him for his kindness. There, Max and his wife treated Kurosz to a Tyler Childers concert. “I talk to Max almost every day. I owe him more than I can express,” Kurosz said.

Finally, it was time for Colin and Sky to return home. On September 1, they finally made it back to Rockaway. “I made it home just in time for Mardi Gras,” Kurosz, whose father lives in Roxbury said.

Kurosz recommends that if anyone is considering taking a long road trip, to simply go for it. “It was incredibly eye opening, heartwarming, humbling, just unreal. I thank God every day I was able to experience that, and it made me so much more grateful to live the life I live,” Kurosz said. “I’m blessed.”

He’s also grateful he took Sky along for the ride, and got that time with her, before her disease took her life. “When I lost her, it made me realize just how much she had filled the void in my life,” he said.

And it’s just the beginning. Only visiting 38 of the contiguous states, Kurosz says he plans on hitting the road again to finish the last 10, this time, with his mom. “I can’t wait. And when I’m done with America, I’m gonna go to Europe. I can’t wait to see what’s next.”

To learn more about Rainy Days, check out Rainydays.org, visit rainydays on Instagram and rainyday on X.