It’s a good thing gas prices weren’t what they are now several years ago.

For Carolyn Dawn Johnson, who made several 60-plus hour road trips from her home of Alberta, Canada to Nashville to attempt a career in country music, she may not be where she is today.

“It’s really crazy, when you think about it, that I did that,” Johnson said. “You sleep in the car some nights, crank the music, and make it as good of a time as you can. My boyfriend at the time helped me get down there, and my parents were thankful to him for doing that. He was committed to helping me with my dream, too.”

Because of border barriers, once Johnson reached Nashville, she was unable to stay there for an extended period of time, which meant another 60-hour road trip.

“Because I was Canadian, I couldn’t stay down there,” she said. “I had to keep coming back, and that was not easy because my family was on the west coast. It’s extremely tiring, and you wonder if it’s worth it or not, but you just go and you do it ‘cause you don’t feel like you have another choice.”

Once Johnson established residence in Nashville, she hoped to achieve a publishing deal with Patrick Joseph Music. Her goal came to life in 1997, following a period of waitressing and bartending, along with continually writing songs.

“Once I was signed, I was a writing freak,” she recalled. “I was just obsessed about it anyway, but I didn’t have to waitress as much and could focus completely on music and I started getting some cuts.”

Several of the most notable songs she has written for other artists include Winstock alumni Chely Wright’s number one hit “Single White Female,” as well as fellow Winstock alumni Jo Dee Messina’s “Downtime.” Johnson has also had hits recorded by Pam Tillis, Kathy Mattea, and SHeDAISY.

“The publishing deal really did change my life,” Johnson said. “I will never have that same energy and joy that I did at that point. I was just so overjoyed that I was a published writer.”

Johnson said that her favorite songs that she has written have all come from personal experiences. One of her first hit songs, “Complicated,” tells her tale of falling in love with a best friend, and the different emotions she went through, trying to decide if she should tell her friend how she really felt, or not tell him for fear of losing the friendship.

“‘Complicated’ was a song written in the thick of me falling in love with a best friend. Every note and every word in that song rings true,” she said. “You still make up lines to go with the song, but they come from personal experiences.”

As Johnson was working on her first album, last year’s Winstock headliner Martina McBride took Johnson under her wing and asked Johnson to sing background vocals and also come out on the road with McBride.

“She took a leap of faith and put me out on the road with her,” Johnson said. “I was petrified . . . she was amazing, and I learned a lot about her professionalism. She’s great.”

Also on Johnson’s first album, she wrote a song titled “Room With a View,” which also became the title of that album.

“‘Room With a View,’ was written after I lost someone in my family to an illness, and it was just horrific and painful,” Johnson said. “When he actually passed away, I wrote this song for his funeral. I don’t think death can be anything but extremely painful and hard. I believe in heaven, I believe in God, and I believe I’m going to see him again, but I still have a hard time with it.”

“It touches a lot of people. Almost anybody can put it in their life to someone they know,” she said. Johnson is also a part of Children’s Miracle Network, and feels that “children should not have to suffer. They have not had a chance to live yet. I feel that God gave me that song for a reason, so it could help people.”

“Room With a View” became the title because the CD was her ‘room with a view,’ and “my expression of me as a person,” she said.

Her second album, the recently released “Dress Rehearsal,” followed with the theme that “life is not a dress rehearsal. You have to make the most of it, and chase your dreams if you got some ‘cause you only got one time around.”

Her first song from “Dress Rehearsal” was the hit single “Simple Life,” which made it up the charts to number 13. Johnson’s new song is called “Die of a Broken Heart,” which Keith Urban sings background vocals on. From road trips to Canada, to hitting the tops of the charts, Johnson is an artist that has always known her goal, and has worked harder than most to achieve it.

“You have to educate yourself and you gotta do something every day to get yourself closer to your goal. You can’t just decide to do it, then every five months do something about it, and then forget about it for a while,” Johnson said. “It’s a commitment, and there’s a lot of sacrifices you need to make. If you don’t know anything about this business, you can get eaten up alive. It’s very rewarding when you have some good stuff happen.”