52 days on the road. 26 nights in a tent.

This long, winding road trip started out planned. I drove to Vegas to pick up my brother, niece and nephew to go camping in Utah and Colorado for almost two weeks. Then I spent a week on Western Colorado’s campus sleeping in the dorms (though I’d much prefer a tent) while Jaden drove the dogs up to South Dakota to spend time with his family. When we reunited, we spent another four nights camping outside of Crested Butte before heading back home to Page. All part of the plan. 

A wall of smoke waited for us at home. The air quality was 409/500- rated as extremely hazardous to inhale. A warning was issued to avoid all physical activity, remain indoors in a filtered environment, buy an air purifier (they were all sold out in town) and to wear a mask. 

Our puppy, Disco, showed neurological symptoms of too much exposure to wildfire smoke. She acted drunk, unable to walk or keep her balance while standing. She shook with anxiety and seemed generally confused about how to drink water out of a bowl.

Not part of the plan. 

It seemed obvious that we should leave. But we just got home from nearly 20 days of traveling. Where should we go? What about our job? 

We worked as kayaking guides on Lake Powell, and no kayaking tours were canceled during this time.

Our job required us to work outside for 8-12 hours a day doing strenuous activity, paddling 5 miles, hiking for an hour, and carrying kayaks up and down The Mother of All Ass Kicking Hills. Co-workers told us masks were not issued, so we bought our own.

When we expressed our concern, management’s response was: No one else is complaining. The guests are still having fun. 

Having fun doesn’t stop particulate matter from entering the bloodstream. We quit. 

My family encouraged us to come home and wait out the smoke. It felt like the right choice for our health but not our bank accounts. Where will the next paycheck come from? How will we pay rent? 

My philosophy in life is it’s never a bad idea to drop everything and drive to family. We loaded up the Prius and drove another 2,000 miles to Florida, where most of my family was vacationing for the week, handing over our hard earned tip money at every gas station. Resisting the chocolate bars and only buying essential fuel: gas and coffee. Luckily, a Prius only requires about $20 to fill, allowing us to stretch our measly savings across the country.

By New Mexico, we realized that we forgot our dog’s leashes at home in Arizona, but weren’t able to find a pet store until Texas. To my horror, I discovered that I left my computer charger at a friend’s house in Colorado, ruining my plans to get school work done on the road. I tried several Best Buy’s and Apple Stores which all no longer carry my specific charging cord from 2012, so we kept driving in a state of discombobulation with our belongings strewn across state lines.

Once we reached the woodlands of eastern Texas, a wave of comfort washed over me. Familiar noise filled me with a sense of home- raucous frogs, singing cicadas, rustling oaks, and babbling creeks. We stayed on a goat farm where the humidity blasted us with a full body sweat and compared to the vastly quiet desert, everything there felt alive with chatter. 

In Texas, I suffered an irksome injury that I’d carry with me for weeks. While opening a refrigerator door, it somehow wedged underneath my toenail and ripped it off but not all the way. I was too much of a wimp to pull it off, so blood and pain colored the next few days, along with worry of infection. 

I always enjoy driving back into the South to see an array of faces. The West could use more diversification. Back in the south, I’m called honey (pronounced hun-knee) just for walking into a gas station. Doors are held open for me at an almost aggressive rate. At a gas station in Louisiana, I tried holding a door open for a man with a lifted truck simply because I got there first. Instead of walking in, he opened the other door and gestured for me to go through. Little things like this make mundane gas station stops more regionally obvious. 

My hopes were set on seeing the gulf for two days, where sprawling live oaks live with Spanish moss draped over enormous branches. It was glorious when we arrived. The dogs ran free on the white sandy beaches after being in the car for more than twenty hours. By this time, Disco’s symptoms from the wildfire smoke had passed and she was looking like a normal puppy again.

The water was shallow and hot like the day. 95% humidity with almost triple digit heat that sent sweat dripping over my eyes and down my butt crack is not something I missed.

I like to surprise my family whenever I can, so only one of my brothers knew we were coming to Florida. Our presence was announced by unleashing the dogs into the backyard, where a chorus of “OH MY GOD! THEY’RE HERE!” greeted us, followed by hugs and cannonballing into the pool surrounded by palms.  

Bobbing over ocean waves was a welcome distraction from the fire burning in the Grand Canyon. Sitting in the sand next to rhythmic crashing quieted the mind while I watched pelicans skim the water for fish under the intense morning sun.

Gritty sand found its way under my exposed toenail, which my five year old niece gave me glow in the dark bandaids to cover. Later in Virginia, she stepped on my toe which finally ripped the whole nail off. 

I’m so grateful to have a family where we trade off showing each other new things. In July, I got to show them a new trail that led above 12,000 feet in Colorado; and under a nearly full moon in August, I followed my niece, nephew and sister-in-law to the beach in search of sea turtles coming out of the ocean to lay their eggs. We found their tracks, big and impossibly wider than any turtle I’d ever seen. 

We saw a loggerhead lady emerge from the surf, slowly crawling up the beach toward the dunes. From a great distance, we watched in awe of the giant creature’s effort to move on land. While she dug in the sand, my niece started pointing and hitting us silently. I turned around to see an even larger green sea turtle fifteen or so feet behind us crawling out of the crashing waves. 

We lowered ourselves into the sand while her impossibly long neck swiveled over to look at us before she kept moving. We probably sat there for a good half hour, maybe more as they trudged up the sand, dug a hole and returned to the sea, leaving us awed. 

Anxiety permeated each stop on the never-ending road trip as we did not have enough money to be truly vacationing. Exhaustion set in too, which feels ungrateful to mention but realistic when we’ve been away from home camping and in other people’s spaces for more than a month already. 

Odd jobs were thrown together with the help of my family.

In Virginia, the Pepperidge Farm Guy needed help. Great! I stacked boxes of goldfish on the shelf of supermarkets during one of their busiest weeks of the year: back to school. 

The Tortilla Guy could use some help too, so Jaden rode along in the big box trucks to deliver tortillas and chips to grocery stores around Richmond.

In between backstocking days, we drove to the Blue Ridge Mountains to mix dust into concrete. We paved a small slice of paradise on my brother’s land to lay the groundwork for a school bus or tiny home to be parked there. 

Before the cement could be poured, we had to dig into the rocky soil, sighing with every “clink” of shovel striking stone. Sometimes it was faster to get on our knees and use our hands to get the entrenched rocks loose. It was my first ever construction project, and my good enough attitude was greatly challenged by the task of leveling the land. If Jaden hadn’t been in charge, the project would not have turned out so great.

My brother’s land is undeveloped with dense woods and debris and no water, so we hauled a cistern to pour water and concrete in a wheelbarrow to mix together with a shovel. It was tiring but rewarding work. We were really transforming the land, making more possibilities available for my brother and his family.

Some days Jaden and I were too tired from all the rock moving, digging, mixing and pouring to go on a waterfall hike. We’d just drive back to the suburbs, briefly stop at an overlook and fall asleep early. It wasn’t quite a vacation, and not exactly 40 hours of work either. 

In between all the driving, back porch goofing, and family dinners, I squeezed in time to edit my memoir, read books and turn in assignments for graduate school. We also spent time learning about building a business. We filed legal tax documents, made an Excel sheet with equations and predictions and met with investors. (More on this later!)

At the end of August, I got the immense pleasure of walking my niece to the bus stop for her first day of Kindergarten with our puppy Disco. Moments like these erased my money misery entirely. 

I left Virginia with bug bites on my ankles, feet, back and belly. Shoes covered in concrete, dogs musty from rolling in wet grass. Free tortillas and a new stack of books. Our brains packed family wisdom and bellies full of chocolate mousse. 

The never ending road trip is still not over, but we are no longer in Virginia. Stay tuned for the next Rambles on the Road where I visit two new states! 

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