With so much at stake in this year's election, two college students from Texas went to extreme measures to make sure their voices were heard.
Meredith Reilly and Zachary Houdek attend American University in Washington, DC. Reilly is from Arlington, and Houdek is from Austin.
Houdek says just as he did two years ago, he applied for an absentee ballot to vote in the presidential election. "I dropped off my ballot (application) in a mailbox near my house before I left back to school at the beginning of September," says Houdek.
Reilly did the same -- and, as was the case with Houdek, her application apparently didn't make it to its final destination. "After a few months, I still hadn't heard anything, (and) I hadn't received my ballot," says Reilly. "So I checked on the voter website, and I saw that my name was not in the system, my ballot (application) hadn't been processed. It just wasn't there at all."
So last Sunday, October 25th, Reilly and Houdek lamented over the situation as they were grabbing some lunch together. "I said it out loud, I was like, 'We might not be able to vote,'" Reilly says. "And saying that out loud, I think both of us just kind of looked at each other across the table, and we were like, 'That can't happen. We can't sit this one out.'"
So, on the most spontaneous of whims, Reilly came up with a plan. "I just looked at Zach and I said, 'Do you want to go to Texas right now?' And he said, 'Yeah! Do you want to go to Texas?' And I said, 'Yeah!'"
Right then and there, Reilly and Houdek packed up their luggage, rented a Volkswagen Golf; and in about two hours, they were on the road, embarking on a 1,400-mile road trip to Texas.
"The trip in total for me to go drop off Meredith in Fort Worth, and then back to Austin, took 30 hours," says Houdek.
The 30 hours included a six-hour sleep break at a motel in Tennessee.
Houdek says thanks to modern technology, neither he nor Reilly missed any class time during their road trip. "Our professors were very accommodating to the fact that we were going back to vote," Houdek says.
The two arrived in Texas last Monday and stayed with their respective families for a few days, during which time they cast their ballots in person. And last Friday morning, it was time for them to turn around and head back to Washington, DC -- this time, driving straight through. "I left Austin, Texas, at 7:00 in the morning, and we arrived in Washington, DC, at 7:00 the next morning," says Houdek.
Reilly says the adventure was very much worth it. "This election specifically very well may be the most important election of our lifetime," says Reilly.
And now, the two have an incredible story to tell their grandchildren decades from now.