Another Year in the Rearview

My blog is sorely neglected, but as you are about to discover, I’ve been pretty busy. Also, as much as I rely on this website to get my information out there, I post a lot more on my substack than I do here. If you don’t already follow my adventures there, you should subscribe! The platform is a lot more user friendly and it sends out notifications with new posts. Anyway, enough shameless promotion. This is how the last year has been going.

It’s fitting that this time of year is a season of reflection. My birthday is in a couple weeks (this one will be the big Five-Oh!–I don’t know why I said it like that). Historically this date has been a good place to start when it comes to marking my accomplishments. Back when I was a kid, it was one of the times of year my folks would back me up to the wall in the kitchen and mark how much I had grown. Old habits die hard. This time of year also marks another anniversary.

Two years ago, I was just finishing up the cleanout at my grandparents’ old house where I was living. The Bus was already parked outside and I was sick of the cleaning, yard sales, and throwing things away. It was time to start that new chapter in life. I started off with a few nights out at my favorite campsite and got a glimpse into the future as to what would be a common occurence: rodent invasion. Then it was chipmunks that had invaded the bus. Later, it would be mice. So many damn mice. It’s one of the charms of life on the road, waking up in the middle of the night to the snap of another trap you’ll have to empty in the morning.

In the last year, I’ve become more seasoned to life on the road. Unlike the first year where I played connect the dots from National Park to National Park, this last year has been different. If you’ve stayed this long, congrats! Doomscrolling hasn’t completely eaten away at your attention span. I know it has mine.

A year ago today, I was in an airplane taking photos for a story that wound up taking around a year and several thousands of miles to write. I didn’t know it yet, but getting to go up in a plane to check out the Muddy Pass Gap on the CDT would be the driving force of the next year of work in my writing.

In the last year on the road, I found myself starting off again from my hometown of Walden, CO. It’s a nice place to spend the summers. I am usually found at my folks’ house where I can enjoy a hot meal and a hot shower on at least a daily basis. It’s level, wifi is good, and being in North Park gives me a chance to work on the VisitNorthParkCO.com website. Summertime in Walden has so much going on. Street fairs, Rodeo, opportunities to take photos, and a chance to do repairs and upgrades on the bus.

I left Walden late last September and somehow I was out of synch with the seasons. I was just ahead of the leaves turning as I headed South. I checked out Taos and Angel Fire before spending a week in Santa Fe. I usually enjoy the vibe there, this year everything seemed done, played out. I upgraded my fridge and kept going, feeling as though the magic was gone. The food was mid. And expensive.

This year, I had a writing assignment in New Mexico at a vanlife event called Moonlanding for ROVA magazine. The year before I covered Skooliepalooza in Arizona. The two events were similar, but once you got past nomads living on the road and getting together, the two diverged dramatically. The people were amazing, the vibe was overall positive, and I got the story I wanted. After Moonlanding, I spent some time in New Mexico, near Grants, the El Malpais National Monument. I had authentic Navajo Tacos in Gallup and felt redeemed for delicious local cuisine. A few weeks at the Cosmic Campground and then Silver City showed me a whole different side of New Mexico. I was back to slow travel. Working, checking out new places, living. With the exception that my solar system seemed to be damaged. I fought power losses for weeks until finally taking everything apart and starting over again from scratch.

By then, autumn was well underway. I left Silver City and headed for Bisbee, AZ and then Tombstone, where I enjoyed a Wyatt Earp cigar on Halloween at the local smoke shop. I headed to Tuscon next and found that much of the public land had been shut down. Too much damage had been done. I continued on to Phoenix and then Quartzsite where I visited with friends in both places briefly. Quartzsite was also different, so I changed my base camp to the Kofa Wildlife Refuge. There I was visited by a pair of grey foxes in the middle of the night. I took lots of photos of cactus. After deciding against Blythe and Parker, AZ for groceries, I found myself in Yuma and liking it. This little agricultural city had just about anything I wanted. Cheap gas, groceries, Dutch Bros.

I worked from the desert and continued to fight my power problems. There just wasn’t enough light for my rig. I found myself reading at night under battery powered lamplight. Feeling restless. Sometimes lonely, like I was missing out. The weeks continued to fly past and a drive up to Lake Havasu City revealed that things had changed there as well. Lots of homeless, lots of garbage. An air of paranoia and dealing with unstable people. I went back to Yuma, but by then, I had another assignment. My biggest so far. And a couple more accepted pitches.

When the pandemic started, I decided to try writing full time for five years. If I didn’t have any success, I would quit and sign up for a trade. Plumbing or carpentry. Something that could pay the bills as I gave up on my dream. In the last two years, I have sold eight stories to magazines–with words and photos! I have two accepted pitches in the works. I have a couple regular clients and the occasional freelance gig that help keep me in gasoline. By that metric, I’m doing well. I’m making my dream come true. I haven’t hung up my typewriter for a pipewrench just yet.

My assignment took me back to New Mexico in March, just as the heat was returning to Arizona. My first day back to Silver City, I was crashed into by two cars. Both of them totalled. My bumper a little twisted but otherwise fine. I was the only one who drove away that day. I followed the Continental Divide Trail north with the arrival of Spring from the bootheel of NM towards Glacier National Park, where I eventually wound up in early May.

Glacier National Park was the only NP I visited this year. It did not disappoint. This trip was different than the year before where I explored the Sierras, Central Valley, and the Oregon coast. Montana and Idaho were amazing and still accommodating to vanlifers. Free campsites (if not very cheap), cool weather, and a little bit of snow. I was glad to see how green everything was, after spending so long in the desert. Standing water. Lakes. Snowcapped mountains. Hot springs. Grizzly bears. Historic cities. And I met incredible people nearly everywhere I went.

My story was about the gaps in the Continental Divide Trail for Trails Magazine (issue 11). I investigated every gap I could between New Mexico and Canada. Returning back to Walden was bittersweet. I had repairs on the bus to make and a solar panel to break out of storage to add to the system, having grown tired of being underpowered for the last year and a half. I had a lens to repair on my camera and other business to take care of. Plus, it was another busy summer in North Park to write about for the website–which has been getting a lot of traction. I picked up a little extra work on the side driving. Got stood up a couple times by prospective clients. Didn’t lose any sleep over it. Took a lot of naps in the summer heat. Penny and I both started packing on some weight and I nearly forgot that teeth-clenching shock to the system from showering in cold water every other day.

In some ways I’ve become soft with the regular showers and meals. Mostly around the middle. I’m not liking the idea of being 50. Now that I am just getting to enjoy life, it seems like I’m looking at the last twenty or thirty years. If I’m lucky. I made some decisions about what to do next. This upcoming year, I’m pushing my comfort zones by heading East this time. Then South. I hope to meet some old friends along the way. Before everything starts to fall apart.

In my travels I have seen the best of human kind, but also some of the worst. I see a gradual recession of our freedom and regardless of which side of the aisle you pray from in the cult of American politics, we the people seem to be losing ground. I’ve seen people living under bushes on freeways, public lands closed off for good, a rising cost of living that makes how people like me live necessary, yet at the same time criminalized. I can almost envision a world in which we must all clock in to a regular 9 to 5 and play Mother May I for a chance to see any of the world other than the road between work and home on our daily commute.

I think travel gives us empathy towards others. I’ve been ripped off and somehow still have more compasion to some dirtbag who made off with my shower tent and some shoes than I do for talking heads on a new channel. I’m hoping to see America while I still can. I’ll keep you posted on the return trip around the sun. In the meantime I plan to share more adventures here and on my substack.

Check out my gallery of the last year of my travels below.