Taking the Columbian Way exit from northbound Interstate 5 in Seattle, the incline of the hill slowed our heavily-laden Land Rover from freeway speed to neighborhood pace. Returning to the Emerald City after a five-month absence felt anticlimactic. The highway’s fading cry echoed behind me, “Hey, come back! There’s so much more to see out here!” Never had I felt so lukewarm about coming home after being away for an extended journey. The call of the road had been whispering in the back of my mind since crossing into southern California nine days earlier, but now that the end was in sight it was a swan song.
The numbers spun through my head: two coasts, five months, 20 states, 11,500 miles, 1,000 pounds of gear. All over now. It’s the sign of a good trip when you’d rather curl up in your sleeping bag in a tent than climb into your own bed.
Two events sparked the inception of this journey. In the summer of 2020 my employer terminated the lease on our downtown high rise office since we couldn’t use the space during the pandemic. Not long after, the ferocity of wildfires in Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia pushed Seattle’s air quality index into the “very unhealthy” range. For 11 days I only left the house to collect the mail.
The summer of the pandemic was apocalyptic. Looking ahead to the winter, my wife and I knew what was coming: social isolation, being stuck indoors, months of rain, and long nights. I had spent enough winters in Seattle – 20, to be precise – to know how the scarcity of light weighed heavily on my mental health. My wife, Jenna, proposed the idea: why don’t we go to Florida for the winter?
Cresting Snoqualmie Pass on November 20th we felt a combination of relief, excitement, liberation, and trepidation. The highway had been closed intermittently over the preceding few days for avalanche control as heavy early season snow fell. We seized our chance in a stable weather window, driving east through the Cascade Mountains and across the plains of the Palouse. Traversing the Idaho panhandle and into Montana we spent the night in Missoula. The air temperature was 18 degrees Fahrenheit when we unloaded our gear.
The uncertainty of the pandemic made the move feel risky but ultimately it was an obvious decision. Jenna was a mental health therapist and had shifted her private practice into the virtual environment in the early stages of the outbreak. Since I had to work remotely, why not take the concept literally? In a scramble of packing and preparation we listed our home on a short-term rental website and hit the road.
Once we had made the decision to evade the Great Seattle Gloom we pondered logistical plans. A question at the front of my mind was whether we should take our 1998 Land Rover Discovery. I had no doubt it would take us across the country and back again but I was hesitant to cover that much distance on a car we ordinarily drive 5,000 miles per year. I suggested to Jenna that we buy a newer, more comfortable, more spacious set of wheels for the trip. Being the Land Rover enthusiast, my proposal was the LR3: ample horsepower, cavernous interior, and air suspension for long distance comfort. We lucked into a well-serviced 2008 model, put more work into it to bolster its reliability, and were confident our choice of chariot would do the job.
The LR3 handled a wide range of conditions easily and served as a reliable workhorse. Photo by Nick Bratton.
In Miles City, Montana, the temperature was no warmer when we stopped for our second night. Our travel strategy was proving sound. We planned to drive from Seattle to East Lansing, Michigan, over five days. We stayed in short-term rental homes to reduce human interaction. We brought all of our own food with us. We stopped to pee in the biting wind at highway offramps, avoiding rest areas. We sprinted across North Dakota – the state with the highest infection rate at the time – stopping only once for gas. The blowing snows of Minnesota were no deterrent to our progress. We took a drive-through test for Covid in Gaylord, Michigan, a couple hours from our destination.
A frosty morning traversing Montana’s wide open, empty spaces. Photo by Jenna Rizzo.
The Mitten
Driving straight to Florida from Seattle would have been a hefty undertaking. Stopping in Michigan for a month along the way made the logistics more manageable. My parents lived in East Lansing and we hadn’t seen them since we parted ways in Johannesburg the previous January after a trip around southern Africa. As luck would have it, a neighbor’s house down the block was vacant and we set up shop with our respective offices. It felt surreal to be living in a house to which I delivered newspapers as a kid.
December in Michigan was unusual for its normalcy. My sister drove up from Kentucky to join us for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Being able to gather as a family amid the pandemic was a stark contrast from the previous nine months of solitude. It also felt good to be able to enjoy the outdoors despite the chill. I split wood and helped my dad with projects in the yard in the morning before work. We took frequent walks in parks and nature areas. Jenna and I both welcomed the snow. Although it was winter, it felt less like winter than Seattle did. Seeing more sunshine and spending more time outdoors than we otherwise would be lifted my spirits.
You geese are on thin ice! A crisp morning in December. Photo by Jenna Rizzo.
Walking paths through local wetlands brought welcome forays into nature. Photo by Jenna Rizzo.
Evening strolls through a nearby neighborhood took us past elaborate light displays. Photo by Jenna Rizzo.
Packing up for our next move we lamented how much stuff we had brought. We had clothing for three different climates, our computers and office equipment, camping gear, art supplies, tools and spare parts for the Land Rover, books, a travel kitchen, a cooler, food, recovery gear for off-road driving, and two bikes mounted on a trailer hitch. Not only that, but we had collected more in Michigan: my mom’s old sewing machine, Christmas gifts, and my box of Lego from childhood to give to a friend’s toddler back in Seattle. If it wasn’t 1,000 pounds, it was close. We could have done with a lot less – the snorkels and wetsuits, for starters.
On our drive to Florida we continued our isolation strategy. Aim for 600 miles per day or less to avoid travel in the dark. Have lunch prepared, something easy to eat while driving. Have dinners pre-made in the cooler so when you arrive at your stop for the night all you have to do is reheat them. Choose accommodations where you feel comfortable leaving stuff in the vehicle to save time repacking in the morning.
The hill country of southern Kentucky and Tennessee welcomed us with pastoral landscapes and roads that rose, fell, and wound through old mountains and hardwood forests. Seeing America from the interstate is not the best way to get a feel for the country, but the stretch of I-75 through the Appalachians was one of the more enjoyable segments of highway driving we did on the trip. Florida, it turns out, is a pretty big state when you try to drive nearly its entire length in a day. We pulled up to our rental house in Fort Myers at dusk, sweating from the heat, and took a beer into the back yard. Sitting in chairs beneath a pair of foxtail palm trees, listening to the birds and insects, we laughed at all the work we had done to reach this point. It felt great to be here and I was grateful to Jenna for the suggestion.
The Gulf
After my years of living abroad, Florida felt closer to South Africa to me than anywhere else I’ve been in the United States. Content to spend my days in shorts, sandals, and lightweight shirts again, I settled into my new home that felt in many ways like my old home. The heat, the humidity, the scents of familiar flowers, the ibises trooping across the yard like their cousins the hadedas, the proximity to the sea, the crunchy grass – I nearly felt like I was back in Durban.
The three-hour time difference with Seattle meant that a couple days a week I had to work late, but it also gave me mornings to explore. I rode my bike to Sanibel Island and went running in the cooler hours. Jenna and I made a practice of waking early to discover the nature around us: walking on the firm sand of a quiet beach, winding around the trails of Lover’s Key, watching wildlife in the still swamp of Cypress Slough. For the seemingly endless residential development, shopping centers, and golf courses in southwest Florida, there are also hidden pockets of nature if you go looking for them.
Another tranquil sunrise over Fort Myers beach. Photo by Nick Bratton.
Jenna and I became fascinated with the Everglades. Having grown up in the paved suburbs of Fort Lauderdale, Florida’s wilderness was not part of Jenna’s youth and I had never visited. We immersed ourselves in the park with a three-day backcountry canoe trip through mangrove swamps. Paddling for hours through a maze of narrow passages, we broke out into open water and spent two nights camped on chickees, raised wooden platforms above the water. The briny scent of the brackish water and the exhalations of passing dolphins made this a new wilderness experience for me. A canoe was an ideal choice – we could bring luxuries like a cooler deep into the Everglades. For more details on this particular adventure, here’s a separate post.
Weaving through the mangrove swamp on Hell’s Bay water trail. Photo by Nick Bratton.
Settled in on Hell’s Bay chickee with Jenna Rizzo. Photo by Nick Bratton.
Teatime at Pearl Bay chickee watching birds and dolphins. Photo by Nick Bratton.
We enjoyed it so much we came back a second time. Jenna booked us a few nights of camping in the eco-tents at Flamingo Bay, which was an ideal base for exploration. We walked among the birds and insects on nature trails in the midweek lull, kayaked through a different section of the park, and hiked a coastal prairie. The one night we spent camping on Long Pine Key was a battle with the mosquitoes, which proved to be a one-sided affair as we retreated into our tent. In the heart of the park was a former U.S. Army missile base, a relic from the Cold War when a Soviet air strike from Cuba was considered a significant threat. We walked among the silent buildings, imagining life during the 1960s at a secret and secure military facility deep within a tranquil landscape.
After crossing the Continental Divide at 6,400 feet we had a smile at this. Photo by Nick Bratton.
Bird walk at dawn in the Everglades. Photo by Nick Bratton.
Sanibel Island was a frequent destination for us. A quick drive from our house, we sought out corners we had missed on prior visits. The sunset kayak paddle around Tarpon Bay to watch the birds roosting in the sanctuary islands was a treat, along with riding our bikes through the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge where we watched squadrons of pelicans, black-crowned night herons, and tricolor herons patrolling the shallows. One day we rode our bikes the length of Sanibel and up to the northern reaches of Captiva Island to have lunch on the beach. We formed a routine of driving onto the causeway islands between Sanibel and the mainland to watch the sunset. Driving onto the beach, we’d park at the water’s edge and sit on the tailgate as ospreys soared above and the sun sank into a rippling sea.
Take-out fish and chips with a front seat to the sunset on the causeway. Photo by Nick Bratton.
Sunset over Sanibel from the causeway doesn’t get old. Photo by Nick Bratton.
Imagine logging onto a video call on a rainy Seattle day in January and seeing your colleague in short sleeves beneath a palm tree. That’s not a selectable Zoom background, that’s the real thing, and I suspect it elicited a mix of envy and jealousy from my coworkers. I felt no shame for taking advantage of the opportunity. I knew how depressed I would be feeling at home and there was no way of knowing if we’d ever be able to do this again. The soft breeze rustled the leaves of the sea grapes and palms as Jenna and I took our evening strolls through the neighborhood to watch the stars come out in the twilight. We didn’t want to leave but we’d already made arrangements for the next stop on our journey.
The Blue Ridge
North Carolina has long held a special place in my heart. After returning from a year in South Africa in my early twenties, I spent a summer teaching rock climbing at a private camp in the Blue Ridge mountains. If the call of the Cascades hadn’t lured me to Seattle, I would have stayed. Now I had the opportunity to experience the place anew and Jenna was keen to get a feel for whether Asheville might be the kind of place we could live long-term.
We rented a home on the edge of the Bent Creek National Forest. Outside our back door was a network of trails. I wasted no time venturing into the warren of singletrack twisting among the ancient hills on a mountain bike. It was a treat to be back in the woods and have some topography after Florida, but the conditions bore an uncanny resemblance to Seattle’s early spring: cold and rainy.
The Appalachians are 200 million years old and my bike is nearly half that age. Photo by Nick Bratton.
Jenna and I had hoped to spend more time getting to know the area, but work reached a demanding pitch during our month in Asheville and the pandemic conditions were not ideal for finding a sense of community. We took hikes in the rolling hills, spent time with my parents who came down to visit, and explored a handful of neighborhoods. Asheville was not what I remembered, but it appeared to have the potential for a high quality of life. Spending time with one of Jenna’s cousins who lived nearby gave us the most valuable insight into what life was like in the region. We wanted to come back and spend more time in a different season.
Westward
In April the late afternoon shadows crept across the road trip, signaling that night would soon descend over the adventure. Work obligations meant I had to be back in Seattle at the end of the month so we made a plan for the return journey. Not wanting to drive straight across the country, we planned to make a dash for New Mexico, where we’d spend a week working, then take two weeks off for the remainder of the voyage with plenty of stops for camping, national parks, and seeing family.
In west Texas we spent the night in a cabin at a hot and dry RV resort, finding a superb dinner of grilled catfish at a local restaurant housed in an old gas station. Our route took us through Roswell, New Mexico, whose surrounding landscape was sufficiently otherworldly to understand the fascination with extraterrestrials.
Las Cruces is the third largest city in New Mexico and we made a comfortable home in a quiet neighborhood lined with earth tone homes and front yards landscaped with rocks and cactus. The sun felt more intense here and the heat penetrated your body as if looking for weakness. Mornings were cool and clear. We sat on the front stoop drinking tea and watching the sun rise over the Organ mountains. In the evenings Jenna and I walked through the dusty neighborhoods and along the arroyos (dry waterways), keeping an eye on the occasional coyote that watched us.
At the end of our work week we crossed the Organ mountains again to visit White Sands National Park. We timed our arrival to reach the gates at opening. We entered an empty park and made our way through the rippling dunes to the trailhead for the backcountry camping loop. Already at 8:00 the sun was bright and we hiked through the cool sand as the temperature rapidly climbed. The fine gypsum sand sifted into our shoes, blew into our ears, and crept into our pockets. Walking through the landscape was simultaneously entrancing, inviting, and disorienting. The dunes stretched for miles towards the wall of distant mountains and I felt drawn to wander aimlessly among them for days. After lunch in a space-age picnic shelter, nap in the back of the Rover, and a few more short hikes, we had seen everything that was publicly accessible during the pandemic and drove back to Las Cruces.
Driving through the dunes at dawn was peaceful and sublime. Photo by Nick Bratton.
Hiking in the backcountry before the sun became blindingly intense. Photo by Nick Bratton.
Whether gazing across the landscape or focusing on what’s right in front of you, White Sands is a majestic place to explore. Photo by Nick Bratton.
California Dreaming
Part of the reason we chose to stay in Las Cruces was that Joshua Tree National Park was within a day’s drive. We pulled off interstate 10 and into soft sand, finding a secluded campsite on BLM land at the edge of the park with the faint roar of long-haul trucks passing on the highway below. Pitching our tent beneath a mesquite tree, we slept with the tent fly off, watching the stars through the mesh fabric.
Desert camping - there’s nothing else like it. Photo by Nick Bratton.
For two days we explored the park, waking early to make the most of the cooler hours. We scrambled the Cottonwood Spring trail, gazing out across the rocky spines of the park radiating into the hazy distance. In the fierce midday sun we ate picnic lunch in the shade of towering granite boulders. In the warm light of the early evening we wandered among the spiny cholla cactus gardens. Jenna and I found ourselves repeating a familiar refrain: we should have planned for more time here.
Any park with a geology trail drive is a treat in my book. Photo by Nick Bratton.
Seeking shade for lunch during the midday heat. Photo by Nick Bratton.
Where the streets have no name (but the climbing routes do). Photo by Nick Bratton.
The cholla garden. Photo by Jenna Rizzo.
In the evenings we wandered down the sandy track and visited with our nearest neighbors 200 meters away. Jurgen and Gabi were a semi-retired German couple who had come to North America with their Mercedes 4x4 van 18 months previously and had ended up staying longer than anticipated. They had realized early during the pandemic that isolating in the wilderness was a sound strategy and had made their way around the United States camping in their van. Hearing about their travels made me feel like an amateur in the presence of seasoned professionals. The most interesting observation they shared was that everywhere they went they found Americans to be friendly and welcoming, but we were the first strangers that had spent a meaningful amount of time getting to know them.
The next stage of our adventure called and we headed southwest through the steep walls of Box Canyon to the edge of the Salton Sea. Jenna had researched the art installations on the east coast so we detoured to the fetid, muddy shores and wandered amongst the surreal collections of art: a swing set in the water, the skeleton of a ship, and domestic scenes bizarrely out of place in the ghostly shadow of a former resort town that would not be out of place in a Mad Max movie.
Box Canyon was a spectacular winding road that would be fantastic to experience by bike. Another place we would have liked to explore further. Photo by Nick Bratton.
The weird, creative world along the shores of the Salton Sea. Photo by Jenna Rizzo.
Into California’s largest state park we continued, ascending steadily along a rocky, sandy track into the upper reaches of Coyote Canyon in Anza-Borrego. A constant wind scoured the sweeping landscape so we descended to the creek to camp in the shelter of some boulders. The wind shook the tent all night but it was a deeply relaxing experience to camp in the solitude of the desert. After four nights of primitive camping we relocated to a golf resort in Borrego Springs to camp under a mesquite and relax in the pool before continuing north.
Sections of the trail in upper Coyote Canyon took a little finesse to traverse. Photo by Nick Bratton.
The best seat in the canyon was in the creek. Photo by Nick Bratton.
It may have been a tad breezy. Photo by Nick Bratton.
One of many enormous metal sculptures in the desert around Borrego Springs by Ricardo Breceda. Photo by Nick Bratton.
When it’s hot in the desert, find shade in the slot canyons. Photo by Nick Bratton.
A full day’s drive took us through Paso Robles and the rolling farm country of San Luis Obispo to the craggy escarpments of Pinnacles National Park. The crowded campground made me long for the loneliness of Coyote Canyon, but rising early to hike up to the granite crest gave us quiet time with the condors soaring in the morning sun. The red granite glowed in the warm light and we were grateful to have had the chance to visit this lesser-known park. Again, another couple days here would have been ideal, but family awaited.
Pinnacles National Park. Photo by Nick Bratton.
Chico was toasty but the cool water of the creek at Salmon Hole and cousin Dina’s pool in the shade of a redwood grove were welcome respite from the heat. After a couple days of hiking and hanging out with family we felt no urge to leave but the unavoidable final leg to Seattle arrived. Being among relatives again filled that empty space in our lives that had been gnawing at us throughout the pandemic. We were fortunate to be able to spend so much of our journey with family. Moving back into our house didn’t bring the sense of relief I imagined it would. To the contrary, I wanted to climb back into the Rover and hit the road again. There was so much more of the country to see, but I needed to honor my obligations. Summer would be here soon and we’d venture forth again.
Swimming in Chico Creek, Upper Bidwell Park. Photo by Nick Bratton.
Reflections
Looking back on the trip it was a privilege to have the flexibility to work remotely in a way that made the journey possible. Skipping a Seattle winter was a refreshing change for my mental health. Being limited by the capacity of the vehicle made us realize that we could live comfortably with few material possessions. In fact, upon returning to Seattle we spent weeks methodically going through our house and giving away loads of stuff that we’d accumulated imperceptibly over the years. It also made us rethink our lifestyle. How could we simplify the way we live to make extended journeys like this the norm rather than the exception? It was a reminder of how much we loved travel, how much the pandemic had made us miss it, and how much we want to reintegrate it into our lives.
There’s a way you experience the country when you drive through it that you miss entirely when traveling by air. Not only do you see surprising corners that you’d otherwise never visit, you get to stop and meet people. The unscripted nature of the road trip is intrinsic to the experience. Unexpected diversions result in the formation of new friendships or the discovery of places you never would have known existed. New communities form and dissolve, you gain invitations for return visits. The disruption of routine breaks you out of your well-worn mental ruts. The distractions of quotidian existence fade and it becomes easier to identify and pursue priorities that are meaningful. Being away for five months also reinforced the importance of shorter, local trips. You don’t have to traverse the country to discover something new and interesting. Even a couple days away can be valuable. After a seemingly interminable year of isolation and blurred time, emerging into a world where socializing is possible again gives us a sense of hope.
Paso Robles, California. Photo by Nick Bratton.