Colorado -> California Road Trip

Day 1: Lafayette, CO -> San Rafael Swell, UT; 6 hours; 394 miles

Solo road trips are definitely fun, but adventures are always better with friends. I was planning on solo road tripping from Colorado to California as soon as my summer job in the mountains was over. Fortunately, one of my best friends from the summer was free after camp and I convinced him to tag along on my 22-hour drive to Cali! After our last day of camp, Will and I crashed at our friend’s apartment, then hit the road around 8:00 AM the next morning.

We took 285 South, then hopped on I70 East for about 300 miles. The drive started with some traffic and a little bit of rain, but nothing too offsetting. After that, we had clear skies and breathtaking views the rest of the way. At one point, Will almost had to take the wheel because my eyes were darting in every direction just trying to take in the incredible sights!

Along the way, we stopped in Grand Junction to get a few last-minute supplies from Walmart and hit up the local Taco Bell because what kind of road trip doesn’t include a few spicy potato soft tacos?! We also fueled up and stopped at a local outdoor gear shop to ask about any good climbing or camping in the area. He told us about a few crags not to far from where we were, but after both having a pretty exhausting week, Will and I both decided we kind of wanted to get to the campsite and just have a chill night and hang out by the fire.

As we crossed over from Colorado to Utah, it was so interesting to see the transition from the mountains to the desert. When you’re in Utah, you pretty much feel like you’re on a different planet. The landscapes are absolutely insane and it makes you think how places like this actually exist in our world. We stopped just after Green River to refuel since the next gas station wasn’t for 150 miles. Talk about being in the literal middle of nowhere!

Not long after that, we took exit 131 for San Rafael North to scout out some free camp sites. We drove about 10 miles off the interstate and faced a tough decision of picking the best campsite when they were all incredible with amazing views. We found a great one at the top of a hill, overlooking a desert valley, surrounded by rock formations!

We hopped out of the car and ran to the top of the rocks near us and just breathed in the fresh air and just rejoiced in the beauty of the area and being away from the city and the noise. We walked around and explored for a while, then we grabbed our climbing gear. Will is teaching me to trad climb, so we walked around and found some cracks, so he could teach me how to place gear!

After Will’s Trad Climbing 101 course, we set up the pocket rocket and boiled some water for dinner. I had ramen noodles and pretzels with chocolate chips for dessert. I know, dinner of champions, am I right? After dinner, we got a fire started and watched a breathtaking sunset over the valley. Sitting by the fire, we both grabbed our instruments and had a guitar/ukulele/mandolin jam session and it was awesome. When our fingers were tired and sore from jamming, we just sat by the fire, looked up at the stars and talked about life. What else do you do when you’re in the desert with someone and you’re the only people in about a 30-mile radius?

Today was an incredible day. The drive was super fun, but the destination was definitely the best part. This summer, for camp, we lived in the middle of the mountains in Bailey, CO with no phone service and the nearest anything was about 10 miles away and it was absolutely incredible. Once overnight camp was over, we both stayed in Boulder for a week and I stayed in Denver for a week after that. It was quite a change going from living in the literal middle of nowhere in the mountains to living in the middle of two massive cities surrounded by a few hundred thousand people constantly. Both Will and I definitely needed to get away from the city life with all the people, traffic, and constant noise and just get off the grid for a bit. We are literally the only 2 people in this valley and it is incredible and exactly what both of our souls needed. We are cowboy camping under the stars tonight and I wouldn’t trade this for anything right now. Sometimes, you need to just take a step away from the world, eat some $0.18 ramen noodles and sleep in the sand in the middle of the desert! My soul is so refreshed right now and I am loving life. Today is a good day to be alive.

Day 2: San Rafael Swell, UT -> Fillmore, UT; 4.5 hours; 289 miles

Woke up on what felt like a different planet. The desert is a crazy cool environment and it definitely makes you feel like you’re on the set of a Star Wars movie! We brought cereal and granola bars for breakfast, so we had a pretty easy morning of just packing up our sleeping bags and hitting the road. We didn’t have too far of a drive since we were only going about to a campsite near St. George, Utah, so we definitely took our time and took advantage of the overlook spots to enjoy the incredible views.

I had some paperwork that I needed to finish for my new job, so we stopped at a coffee shop to refuel and get some work done. After finishing that up, we hopped back on the road to finish the drive. We got to St. George around 2PM and turned off the interstate to head to a BLM area near some good climbing spots. We hit up Sunset Alley crag and got to do some really nice limestone climbs. Sadly, Will wasn’t feeling too well and wasn’t in much of a climbing mood, so he took a snoozer at the crag. While he was taking a nap, I decided to go exploring around the area to see what it had to offer. Not far from our climbing spot, there was a sort of canyon/chimney with a rope hanging down from it. Of course, I had to climb it. I jugged up to the top of this canyon and ended up on the top of the butte, with a 360^o view of the desert to my left and the mountains to my right. It was a beautiful spot, and I just hung out up there and had some personal reflection time, which was much needed. It was also so nice to just sit and admire nature and enjoy the beauty of the silence.

After this, I headed back down to check on Will to see if he was feeling any better. When I got back, he was just waking up from his nap and he was feeling a little bit better. Not good enough to climb, but good enough to explore this small cave we had been eyeing not far from our climbing spot. We hiked up to it, but sadly, it wasn’t much of a cave, just a small alcove in the rock. Don’t get me wrong, it was cool, but unfortunately, there wasn’t much to explore.

After exploring the area a bit, we hiked back to the car to start our search for the perfect campsite for the night. BLM dispersed campsites are an amazing contribution to this world, but they make life so difficult when trying to find the best campsite because they’re all so beautiful and you can end up driving around for an hour “real-estate shopping” (Will’s term) without even realizing it. We drove around a good bit to see what our options were and ended up on some pretty insanely sketchy roads. My poor car is used to flat, sea level, paved roads and he was definitely put to the test on some of the roads out here. We found a really cool spot near the top of a mountain with a crazy desert overlook to the left and a beautiful mountain and valley view to the right, but sadly my car couldn’t get up the roads and there weren’t many good campsites in the area, so we decided to go find a campsite further down the mountain with less sketchy roads and just go back up to that spot for sunset. So, we drove around a little more and found a good campsite with an incredible desert overlook view. We hung out there, cooked dinner, and jammed on our instruments for a bit before driving back up for sunset.

We went back up to the spot we had found earlier and hiked up to the top of the mountain next to the road to get the best view. That was a great decision because the sunset was absolutely incredible setting behind the silhouetted blue-gray mountains that went on as far as we could see. Once the sun was gone for the day, we headed back to the campsite for a good ole campfire. We relaxed by the fire, admired the wide-open sky of desert stars and hit the hay after a very full day.

Today was an amazing day of traveling and exploring. It was so nice to have such a short day, so we had the opportunity to just take our time and not rush through the beautiful sights we were driving through. I’ve never been anywhere in Utah outside of Moab, so it’s cool to see more of this amazing state. It’s also been so freeing basically being at the mercy of mother nature. We woke up with the sun, made a fire after the sun set, and went to bed not long after that. We’ve also gotten super lucky with weather because we have had perfectly clear nights for some much-needed star-gazing. Guys, if you get a chance, go camp in the desert. It’s SO much more than tumbleweeds and cacti!

Day 3: Fillmore, UT -> Zion National Park -> Tonopah, NV; 7 hours; 396 miles

Woke up to a beautiful blue, gold, and orange sky with the sun rising over the desert canyons. Now I’m not the biggest fan of waking up at 6:15AM, but if a colorful sunrise is what’s waking me up, I’m a happy bean. We packed up camp and got on the road around 7:15 and made our way to Zion National Park! Neither Will or I had ever been and we were so excited because we had heard nothing but good things about this park!

Our minds were kind of blown when we first got there because we literally felt like we were in Disney World. There had to be a few thousand people just in the first five minutes of being in the park. Will and I both love nature and exploring, but we are not really fans of crowds. So, we headed to the visitor’s center to get some hiking information and how to get away from the masses of people. The ranger told us we could pull off anywhere on the eastern side where there’s a spot and you can basically hike anywhere as long as you’re staying on durable surfaces. That was the best thing he could have told us because now this park was basically our playground!

We found a pull-off after the tunnel, parked, grabbed our day packs, and started our exploring. We found a pretty cool canyon that went on for a while and we just hiked through it, exploring all the little alcoves and off shoots. It was super fun and incredibly beautiful. When we felt like we had seen most of that area, we headed back to the car to find another adventure spot.

We wanted to see the whole park, so we drove the main road until we hit the other side of the park entrance and then flipped a u-turn. On the drive back, we found another pull-off to park at and do some more hiking. We found another canyon where we did some exploring and even found a spot to do some fun scrambling to the top of the butte, where we got an incredible view of the park! It was mid-afternoon and we still had a few hours on the road ahead of us, so we decided to head out and start making our way to the campsite.

Will was craving a burger, so we found a cute little spot called MeMe’s Cafe just outside of the park where he got his burger and I got a veggie grilled cheese, which was pretty tasty. With full bellies, we hit the road again and headed to Nevada. We decided to take a slightly different route to Cali than we had originally planned, which goes through mid-Nevada instead of going south almost to Los Angeles and back up north. The slightly longer, more northern route seemed like it would be more scenic, through less big cities, and would put us going through Yosemite, which seemed like the much better option.

To our pleasure, this drive did not disappoint! The road through northern Arizona and mid-Nevada was crazy. It was desert-y, mountainous, had some pretty vast plains… We got a glimpse of so many different terrains in such a short distance and it was mind-blowing. For about a hundred miles, we were the only car on the road and we loved it! It’s so cool to be out in the middle of nowhere and be the only ones there. It makes you feel so free and it makes you just take a second to appreciate the incredible beauty around you. It’s not that you can’t do that when there’s other people around, but it’s definitely more difficult to really appreciate it when you’re surrounded by hundreds of people with constant noise around you. It’s just cool to think that you’re the only person in the entire world seeing the view you’re seeing in that moment.

We finished our drive at an old, abandoned mining site, where there was free dispersed camping. This spot was amazing! Will and I felt like we were cowboys back in the wild, wild west. There were abandoned mine shafts that we went explore around (but didn’t go inside because, you know, we value our lives and didn’t want to get blown up by some left-over dynamite). It was really cool to just stand in a part of history, knowing that years ago, there were men out here working in these mines every single day for months on end. While we were exploring, we got a beautiful, desert sunset, with sunlight giving the valley a beautiful golden glow. We headed back to camp, built a fire, ate some ramen and just admired the beautiful array of stars (with absolutely zero light pollution, besides the glow from the moon). Yall. Life is good.

It was another amazing day just reveling in the incredible beauty of this country. We were constantly blown away at how lucky we are to live in such an amazing place with such easy access to it all. It was also awesome to be the only ones in this abandoned mining field. It was so crazy! We are loving all these adventure-filled days and we cannot wait to see what’s up next!

Day 4: Tonopah, NV -> Yosemite National Park -> Buck Meadows, CA; 5.75 hours; 241 miles

Woke up to a bright, golden sun peaking out over the rocks. Unfortunately, neither Will or I slept super well for whatever reason. But on the bright side, every time I would wake up in the night, I would just stare up at the incredible star-filled night sky until I was able to fall back asleep.

We packed up camp, but we weren’t sure about our plans for the day, so we drove to the nearest town and found a coffee shop and made a rough itinerary for the day. Since we took the northern route, we were going to be driving straight through Yosemite National Park! We decided we were going to go and do some exploring there and then stay at a free campsite just out of the park in Buck Meadows. We were both super stoked to check out Yosemite and the drive to get there was incredible! Watching the landscape change back from desert to mountains was just crazy. The Sierra Nevada mountains are absolutely breathtaking. Also, it was so nice to see trees again! The desert is an amazing environment, but it does make me miss vegetation!

When we finally made it to Yosemite, we were completely blown away. This place was amazing! Sadly though, it was basically Zion all over again and we felt like we were at nature’s version of Disney World. We headed to the visitor’s center to ask pretty much the same thing, where to do some moderate hikes and to escape the crowds. The ranger told us about a cool hike to Lukens Lake that we would probably enjoy. It took us about an hour to get to the trailhead because this place is huge! Also, traffic…. And we stopped at lots of the scenic pull outs because we just could not get over some of the views!

Now I don’t know if there was just miscommunication or the ranger just didn’t understand my question, but we told her were looking for about a 3-4 mile, moderate, not too easy, not too hard hike. The hike to the lake was 0.8 miles and was almost completely flat ground, which was kind of disappointing because we were definitely looking for a little more of a challenge. Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice little hike and the lake was really pretty, but we just wanted to hike a little more and something a slightly harder with a cooler, mountainous view. Will and I were going to hike a little more around that area to get more distance in, but we decided we wanted to see other parts of the park more, so we hiked back and drove down to Yosemite Valley.

Holy canoli, this place is breathtaking. You almost can’t fathom how massive these granite walls are until you see them in person. We were driving around just in complete awe of these mountains and rock formations. Will and I are both really into rock climbing, but he’s in it a little more, so when we turned the corner and saw El Capitan, he absolutely freaked out. It is one of the most coveted and hardest climbs in the entire world. We parked at a small pull off, and hiked a little so we could get a closer look at it. Then we sat on a rock and just stared at it. The size of this thing could blow your mind. And the thought of climbing it is kind of insane. You look at it and there just nothing there, no good holds, no good feet, just straight up for 3000ft. Many climbers dream of the day they will get to the top of this face. You’ll get there one day, Will, I have full faith!

After fangirling over this rock for a while, we hopped back in the car to see the rest of the park. A few miles down the road, we found a turn off for a beach on the river that you could hike to, so we decided to check that out. Just on the other side of the river was a massive, granite mountain face, so we stuck our feet in the river and just sat and admired the incredible granite walls surrounding us.

I could have sat, with my feet in the river, staring at that mountain for hours on end, just with how peaceful and beautiful it was. But we did have to finish our drive around the park and get to our campsite before sunset. We drove the big loop around Yosemite Valley and stopped at many of the pull offs to admire the views. We really wanted to take a step off the beaten paths and do more hiking around the park and not just driving, but that’s so difficult to do when you only have about a half a day here. Unfortunately, at one point we had to start heading out of the park. This place honestly blew our minds. It was captivatingly beautiful and I cannot wait to go back to do some more adventuring! And hopefully get to the point where I am good enough to climb there!

Thankfully, we had found a campsite not too far outside of the park, so it didn’t take us too long to get to the turn off for it. When we turned off the main road, the GPS said we still had 40 minutes until we would get there, but we only had 5 miles left, so we were pretty confused. Very shortly, we realized how it could possibly take 40 minutes to only go 5 miles. The road to the campsite was a rough, narrow, dirt road going straight down the mountain-side all the way down to the river. Talk about sketchy. This was a non-heavily trafficked mountain road in the middle of nowhere, so it was not well maintained, filled with many potholes, and there were no barriers on the side. It was a super scary drive, but also insanely beautiful because we were watching the sun set over the mountains and light up the valley as we were driving and every corner we would turn, we would get another incredible view of the massive river below.

We finally make it down to the valley, and these campsites are incredible! We picked one that had a firepit and recliner seats that someone had left there right on the river! We sadly couldn’t see the sunset because we were so far down in the valley, but we grabbed the hammock and set it up right along the river to catch the remnant colors of the disappearing sun. It had been a very long and eventful day, so it was so nice to just sit in the hammock and relax and listen to the rush of the river. We stayed there for a while just admiring the mountains and talking about life. We started to get pretty hungry as it was getting darker, so we headed up to the campsite to start dinner and build a fire. Dinner was another healthy meal of Ramen, a pb&j tortilla wrap and Lay’s potato chips. We are eating like royalty on this trip, let me tell ya.

After dinner, we hung out by the fire for a while, then let it die out so we could check out the stars. The stars at all of our campsites have been absolutely incredible, but it has been pretty disappointing because it’s been a waxing moon and tonight was the full moon, so it makes it a little difficult to see the stars very well. But if the only light pollution for miles is the moon, I’m honestly pretty okay with that. We fell asleep looking up at the stars and listening to the rush of the river.

I have fallen asleep every night on this trip thinking that life just can’t get better than this. Living this simple life on the road is definitely the best way to live. I have heard incredible things about Yosemite and I am so glad to have finally made it there. It’s definitely sparked a new desire in my heart to visit all the national parks in the States. Seven down, only 54 more to go. We’ve got so many beautiful places and I can’t wait to hopefully see them all!

Day 5: Buck Meadows, CA -> San Francisco, CA; 4 Hours; 162 miles

The bright, morning sun woke me up pretty early and Will was still asleep, so I grabbed my laptop and plopped back in the hammock to do some writing at the river. It was so nice and peaceful. Will woke up not too long after and we packed up camp and jumped back on the road to finally head to THE OCEAN! Yall. You don’t even know how much my heart is missing the ocean. I absolutely loved living in the mountains and I could definitely see myself moving back to the mountains, but my soul was desperately missing some salt water.

We started the drive going back up the sketchy 5 mile, cliff-side, dirt mountain road and Jack (my wonderful blue Ford Escape) actually did pretty well on it to our surprise. The drive today was about five hours and I was constantly torn with being super sad to be leaving the mountains but also super crazy excited to see the ocean. We had a beautiful drive through the mountains of California and everything was going so well. Until we hit San Francisco…. Holy canoli that city has some people in it. When we were finally approaching the city, we got caught in a traffic jam and it took us about an hour to move a mile. One single mile. Yall. Talk about culture shock going from being the only people for miles and miles in the middle of the wilderness the past five days to being surrounded by about 500,000 people in about a mile radius. Will and I got pretty frustrated with all the traffic and the loudness and business of the city. I was also having such a hard time because I could literally see the ocean but we were basically a world away with how slow we were moving.

We finally made it out of traffic and headed straight for China Beach. When we got there, I literally took off running, dropped my backpack somewhere on the beach and just dove head first into the refreshing waters of the Pacific. I felt like I was home again. My soul literally craves salt water and it was finally being fulfilled after being apart for so long. Unfortunately, with my excitement level so high, I wasn’t thinking straight and I forgot to take my phone out of my back pocket before diving straight in…. So yea, my poor Motorola G6 was lost to the ocean. Not that it fell out, it just sadly doesn’t love salt water as much as I do… So that kind of put a damper on things, but I was so unbelievably excited to see the ocean that I wasn’t going to let that ruin my day. But also, praise the Lord for Google Photos, because all my photos automatically saved onto my laptop! I would have been completely heartbroken if I had just lost all my pictures from this road trip. But, I still was without a phone the rest of the trip, so I wasn’t able to take any more photos, sadly. Will took a few on his phone, so I just used what he had.

The cool thing about San Francisco beaches is that they’re sandy beaches, but they’ve also got awesome rock structures just dropping right into the ocean. Will and I did some climbing and exploring and just sat and watched the waves crash on the rocks. I have seen lots of beautiful things in my life, but watching ocean waves crash on the rocks is probably one of my favorite things in the entire world. I could sit there for hours and hours watching this interaction. We sat for a while, played in the sand for a while and then headed out. We weren’t completely sure where we were going to stay for the night since free camp sites are harder to find near a big city, so we decided to scope out our options. We found one site online that said there was a parking lot in the city right on the water where you could stay for free. It sounded a little too good to be true and we weren’t sure if there would be somewhere where we could set up our sleeping pads so we wouldn’t just be sleeping in the car. Since we didn’t know what it was about, we drove up to check it out. It turns out it was a marina parking lot that wasn’t free and there was no place to cowboy camp. We decided we would keep looking around to find something better. We headed to a Starbucks to get some wifi and do a little more research. Looking at all the free camp sites in the area, a lot of them looked pretty sketchy and we didn’t feel super comfortable staying in them. It was getting hard to find something and we hadn’t showered in the past five days, so we thought about finding a cheap airb&b or a cheap motel.

Apparently, there aint nothing cheap in San Francisco. The cheapest anything we could find was about $120. For two travelers who basically live off of ramen and Taco Bell, $120 is a lot of money and we did not want to pay that. We found a few hotels for $60 or $70, but the reviews were horrendous, saying the places were infested with bed bugs and animals and the staff was not accommodating at all. Don’t get us wrong, we were not looking for luxury in any sense of the word, but we definitely were not about to spend money on a place that sounds so gross and unsanitary.

We ended up finding one rest stop parking lot just off of the Golden Gate Bridge that had pretty good reviews on it where you could park for free. We had decided we were just going to stay there and push all our stuff over and camp in the back of my car. After finally making a decision on our plans for the night, we headed over to the famous Pier 39 to check out the cool shops, restaurants, and street performers. Some of our friends had been in San Francisco the week before and told us about this place called Doughp that’s on the Pier and it’s literally just a cookie dough shop. Yall, that is literally my dream kind of place. I love cookie dough more than almost anything in the world. Literally, my two priorities for this road trip were 1- jump in the ocean and 2- get cookie dough at this shop. Will and I had been looking forward to this place the entire week, so when we saw it, we almost ran there. Sadly, as we were walking up, we noticed it was kind of dark inside and it didn’t look like there were any people in it. Our worst fears came true when we walked up to the door and there hung the dreaded “Closed” sign. But not only was it just closed, it was closed down. They had a sign that said if you really want Doughp, they ship nation-wide or we can check out their store in Las Vegas. Yea, let me just get in the car and drive 9 hours to another state to get some cookie dough. Will and I just stood outside the door in shock and basically cried. I was literally heartbroken.

Still wanting cookie dough more than anything, we looked up other places in the area and there was one that was a 31 minute walk away that closed in about 29 minutes. We definitely considered it, but we didn’t want to have to basically run there and we didn’t want to be those people who walk in literally 2 minutes before they close. Being pretty heartbroken, we knew we needed something other form of sugar to satisfy that desire. When driving to the Pier, we passed a food truck for Baked Bear. If you read my post about my trip to San Diego, then you know about my obsession with Baked Bear. I didn’t know it was that big of a chain that they had a location in San Francisco, so I was super surprised and excited to see it. I had hyped it up a good bit, so I got Will pretty excited about it too and we headed there to eat our sorrows away on delicious homemade custom ice cream sandwiches. Now it wasn’t the cookie dough that I was looking forward to so much, but it was still incredible and exactly what we both needed. I got a gooey cake cookie and a salted caramel cookie, filled with toasted smores ice cream, and toasted. Ahh it was amazing.

After satisfying our sweet tooths, we headed to San Francisco Brewing Company in Ghirardelli Square for a drink and some dinner. I got the Kable Car Kolsch and beer cheese macaroni and it was incredible. Unfortunately, we were both only able to eat maybe a quarter of our meals because we were so stinkin full from the ice cream sandwiches we had just stuffed our faces with. On the bright side though, I took both of our leftovers and saved them for lunch the next day. Yay for free food. Well, I guess it’s not exactly free because we paid for it all, but I didn’t have to buy more food, which is always nice.

From the brewery, we basically hobbled ourselves back to the car and headed to the coast. After driving for 5 days, halfway across the country, you can’t get to the coast and not watch a beach sunset. We made our way to Ocean Beach hearing that it was a beautiful beach to watch the sun set. Apparently, everyone else heard the same thing because even an hour before sunset, there were hundreds of people there with literally nowhere to park. We drove around, about to get really frustrated because we weren’t able to find anything. And just as we were getting mad, a prime parking spot opens up just as we are pulling into this parking lot literally two feet from the sand. We were so greatful for this spot because we had been pretty frustrated with this city most of the day and this kind of restored our faith in it.

We parked, kicked our shoes off, grabbed a jacket (because it gets real cold here at night), and headed over to the water. As soon as we stepped onto the sand, Will freaked out because he saw a beautiful German Shepard (which is his favorite breed of dog) playing fetch on the beach and he freaks out saying he needs to pet it. So, this dog and its owner are walking down the beach, playing fetch and we basically start stalking them trying to catch up with them but wanting to be subtle and not like run after them or anything. So, we sort of creepily follow them for about a quarter of a mile down the beach until the dog finally stops and sits down to play with some people. We finally catch up with them and we ask her owner if we can pet her.

He says yes and tells us her name is Chetzu, which means “full of love”. She was so sweet and so cuddly. We sat there for a while playing with her and talking to her owner, Wayne, who was about in his 50s. He was a really cool and nice guy and he asked us where we were from and what we were doing here. We told him that we were from Louisiana and Washington and we just finished a summer camp job and we were just on a cross country road trip and this was our last stop. Then he tells us that he used to work at a summer camp and he basically did the same thing when he was finished. So we just started talking about camp and travels and adventures and we ended up talking with him for a good while.

Then he asks where we’re staying for the night and we told him that we were probably just going to car camp at this rest stop near the bridge because that’s pretty much all we could find. Then he goes on to tell us that he lives just across the street and if we needed somewhere, we could camp in his backyard. Now I know you’re probably reading this thinking, “Meg, yall better not have gone to his house. That is so creepy and dangerous and who knows what could happen to you”. I’m going to be 100% honest with yall and tell you that all those thoughts went through my head. I felt like that’s how all scary movies start and this is the point of the movie where everyone in the theater is yelling at the protagonist saying “Don’t do it!”. Well we exchanged numbers with him and he told us to give him a call if we wanted to stay there.

He left and Will and I continued to walk on the beach to find a good sunset watching spot away from the crowds. When we found a spot, we talked about how we were feeling about everything. We both had a really good vibe about Wayne. He seemed like a super nice guy that knows how life is on the road and he’s just trying to be kind and help us out. We weren’t really looking forward to car camping since we had so much stuff and gear in the back of my car and it was going to be a really cramped night, so we decided we were going to take him up on his offer. You’re probably thinking that we made a horrible, unsafe, sketchy decision. But, I would never have done that if I was alone, if we had any sort of inkling of a thought that he was strange or scary or odd in any way, we wouldn’t have agreed, and we agreed to look at the house and the surrounding area before going in to see how we felt about everything and we had a code word that we would use if either of us felt uncomfortable or unsafe at any point and we would get out of there.

We hung out at the beach for a while and watched a magnificent sunset with beautiful colors just next to the mountains that drop straight into the ocean. I do love the mountains so so so much, but almost nothing beats a beautiful ocean sunset.

After saying good bye to the sun for the day, we headed back to the car and gave Wayne a call. He sent us his address and we headed over to the store to pick up a bottle of wine for him as a sign of gratitude for letting us stay at his place. We get there and it’s a pretty cool, 3-story house just across from the beach. We both felt pretty good about it, so we headed inside. He gave us the grand tour and this place was so nice! He also offered for us to sleep in one of the guest rooms instead of outside and told us we could use the shower or use his kitchen to make food if we wanted. He was so kind and so welcoming. I’m not really one for luxury and I will almost never turn down an opportunity to sleep outside, so Will and I decided we would just take him up on his backyard offer. However, I did take him up on the shower offer because it had been about 5 days and I was starting to smell myself and I also didn’t know when my next shower was going to be.

So after I got all nice and clean, Will and I headed to the back yard to set up our sleeping pads. Wayne came outside with us to show us where everything was and he said we could sleep on the outside couches on the back porch so we weren’t on the ground. While he was helping us get settled in, we just got to talking and we ended up cracking open the bottle of wine. Then we literally sat on this guy’s back porch and drank a bottle of wine with him and talked with him and shared stories together for hours. He had the craziest stories from his summer camp that he had worked at and we told him all of our stories from the summer and we talked about life and travels and careers and how he got to where he is now and what me and Will’s goals for our lives are… We talked and laughed and shared life stories and it was incredible. He is such a great guy and it was so cool get a little glimpse into his life.

Wayne knew we had to get up pretty early the next morning to head to the airport, so he left us to go to bed around midnight. Will and I stayed up talking for a while just reminiscing on how incredible of an experience the past five days had been and how much of a turn of fate the whole night had been with getting that awesome parking spot to meeting this incredible guy who opened up his home to us. After talking for a while, we headed upstairs to use the bathroom and get ready for bed. We walk into the 3^rd floor section and Wayne was still up watching TV and he tells us that he heard us still up talking and figured we were hungry, so he threw some pizza and breadsticks in the oven for us. We couldn’t even believe it. Like how incredible of a person to do that for someone. Especially two people that they don’t even know. We were so blessed and greatful for this incredible man and everything he did for us. We all sat in the kitchen, talking and eating pizza for a while. Then we realized it was super late and we had to wake up super early the next day for Will’s flight. We bid Wayne farewell and headed downstairs.

What a totally crazy night! I know with how the world is nowadays, that whole situation could have had a much different outcome, but I am honestly a very trusting person and I just had a good feeling about people like Wayne. I strongly believe that people are inherently good and we live our lives with that mindset. It absolutely breaks my heart that we live in a society where we basically should be afraid of every person around us and we should trust no one and we should never do anything alone. That makes me so sad that that is what our world has come to. But it’s people like Wayne who help restore some of my faith in humanity. He is just a nice guy looking to do nice things for other people and we need more people like that. We also need people to be more trusting. Wayne thanked Will and I multiple times for allowing him to be hospitable. It’s honestly so sad to live in a world where you could be considered a creep or a psycho just for trying to help someone out. We need more love in this world. We need more hospitality and kindness and generosity. You may think that Will and I made a dumb decision, but it was an incredible night and we got to know a guy that has an awesome life story. I am so glad that we said yes and allowed him to be hospitable to us. We would have been fine staying at the rest stop, but this was definitely a better last night than staying there. We went to sleep with a little bit of faith in humanity restored.

We fell asleep hearing the waves crash on shore just a hundred yards away from us. Unfortunately, since it was such a great night, we didn’t want it to end and so we stayed up way too late and had to wake up way too early the next morning. And that 5:00AM alarm came way too soon. Unfortunately, we had to get up and get moving so Will would not miss his 7:30AM flight. We got ready pretty quick and headed over to the airport. Will, tugging on my heartstrings, played some of the saddest, most heart wrenching goodbye songs on our drive, so we were both just basically crying the whole drive over. We sadly made it to the airport and had to say goodbye. I don’t do well with goodbyes especially when I don’t know the next time I’m going to see that person. It was such a hard goodbye because it was just solidifying the fact that this incredible summer experience that I just had was over and all the amazing friends that I made, I don’t know when I’m going to see them all again and I’m about to jump into a whole new job with a whole new group of people and I’m super nervous about it. Pretty much all of these emotions hit me in the like 10 seconds of hugging Will goodbye and then the tears started rolling. We gave each other a few more solid hugs, then he had to head to his gate.

Wow, I didn’t know this road trip would have such an impact on me and I didn’t know I would be so sad for it to end. I don’t think I could even pick a favorite part of this trip. We had an incredible campsite every single night, we drove through some absolutely beautiful landscapes, we visited some breathtaking parks, we got to climb, hike, canyoneer, explore, cowboy camp, stargaze, jam, sing, laugh…and I loved every single second of it. I had every intention of doing this road trip by myself and I know I would have had a great experience no matter what, but it was so nice to have a travel buddy for this one. Will was an awesome co-pilot, DJ, adventure buddy, jam sesh partner, cringe-worthy dad joke teller, and all together a great friend to share this adventure with. Yall, find friends who will drive halfway across the country and go on crazy adventures with you! Those are the best kind!

This was definitely my favorite road trip so far and I literally cannot wait to go on more! The US is an incredibly diverse and beautiful country and there is so much to explore! I will be working and traveling in California for the next few months and who knows where life will take me after that! Hopefully, I’ll be able to find more adventure buddies to go explore with!

Do you enjoy reading about all my travels and adventures? Would you like to help my adventures continue by supporting me financially? If you do, then please know, that would mean the world to me! To do this, you can go to my Patreon page to choose which level you would like to support me at! Thanks for your love and support and remember to make every day an adventure!