Montrose, Colorado to Salt Gorge, Utah

On April 30, 2025, Blaise and I left our home at the lodge we’d worked at for the past few years and embarked on a heck of a journey. We left the house just before 1:00 pm—everything was finally loaded into my car, his pickup, and we were headed to Montrose to pick up The Cosmic Nomad.

I snapped one last picture out the window of my car, realizing this could very well be the last time I was ever pulling out of this driveway. We were excited, but it still felt heavy. We had lots to do, and the day was getting away from us fast.

An hour or so later, we arrived in Montrose. We got Sonic, took our time getting to where my camper was stored. The day may have been slipping away, but we’d be slipping away to the open road and our huge adventure soon enough.

When we got to The Cosmic Nomad, I frantically finished “packing.” Things needed homes for the trip, and I’m so much more familiar with packing to park, not packing to move.

Things got stuffed into cupboards, under the bed, into the shower stall of the bathroom.

At the last second, I told Blaise “Wait! I have to make the bed!” It seemed like the kind of thing I’d thank myself for later.

We got The Cosmic Nomad hitched up. Here’s where I have to make a confession:

I had no idea if my Explorer could even pull this thing.

When I bought this car, my only real “must have” was a towing capacity of at least 5,000 pounds.

The salesman assured me it would go.

I checked specs on a 2016 Ford Explorer XLT with a factory towing package and felt… OK about it, at best.

I knew my camper weighed about 3,400 pounds empty, and figured there was no way I had 1,500 pounds of extra stuff.

But the whole time leading up to this moment, I hadn’t asked anyone if they thought it would go.

Insane, I know. But there was something inside me that was telling me it would be fine, and that there was nothing more important than to try and to just GO.

When we took off, I was scared.

More than scared.

Terrified.

And as I punched in coordinates to a boondocking site in Utah, I said a little prayer:

“Please God, just let this go. Keep me rubber side down, don’t let my engine blow up, please, Jesus, just let this be ok.”

It was late when we pulled off—like, awkwardly late. 5:16 pm late.

This was one of the few times of the entire trip we decided to take a highway, just to get out of Colorado and into Utah at a decent hour.

And as we merged onto I70 and I heard my engine roaring, pushing, straining to bring me up to highway speeds, it hit me:

Pretty much everything I own is my responsibility right now. I’ve literally taken my life into my hands.

We had radios. I radioed Blaise for the first time on the real part of the trip, asking if I was clear to merge over.

He crackled back right as I saw his pickup in my rearview:

“You’re clear, come on over.”

We came through Grand Junction, stopping for gas far sooner than I thought I’d need to.

Blaise was pretty surprised how fast I burned through half a tank of gas. I was too. I had no idea what my towing mileage would be, and all I could think to say was “She isn’t sipping like a lady, she’s chugging.”

All the while, after we pulled off from getting gas, I kept worrying.

Worrying about the weather.

About my gas mileage.

About every little sway I felt from The Cosmic Nomad behind me. The way every passing car and semi had their own little eddies of wind that pulled, then pushed, then released as they came by.

But we’d been talking about this quote, as we got ready. Thinking about Kerouac, thinking about journeys and those before us who felt compelled to answer the call of the open road…

“They have worries, they’re counting the miles, they’re thinking about where to sleep tonight, how much money for gas, the weather, how they’ll get there—and all the time they’ll get there anyway, you see.”

Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Part 3, Ch. 5

When we got to our exit, passing places I hadn’t been since just after an internship that left me intimately familiar with the Utah desert, I was feeling better.

More relaxed. Like my jaw and my shoulders had finally worn themselves out.

Like I’d proved to myself that I could do this, that I wasn’t a damned fool. Like it wouldn’t all fall to pieces as I towed my life down the road.

Pulling off, winding back under the highway, I felt peace fall upon me. Driving up the road, passing the pull off I figured we’d camp in from the pictures I’d seen, I radioed Blaise again.

“Wanna keep going?”

“Sure,” he crackled back.

So we did. For the first time, I felt the sneaky voice that haunts you when you’re hauling a trailer start hissing in my ear.

“What if the road runs out?” it whispered.

“What if there’s nowhere to turn around?”

For a moment, I hesitated, foot light on the gas.

Then I said out loud “We’ll deal with that when we get there, for now, shut up and let me drive.”

And drive we did. Two miles into the road, we found a beautiful pull off.

The sun was setting, and we didn’t even unhitch that night.

There really aren’t words for how it felt when I snapped this picture, but I’m going to try to do my best to explain it.

In this moment, I felt insane and brilliant at the same time. I felt scared and like I could go kick the open road in the nuts.

I felt like I was simultaneously making my parents so proud and disappointing them beyond belief doing something this wild.

More than anything, I felt more free than I ever had in my entire life. This was my greatest dream when I bought The Cosmic Nomad: Get out on the open road with everything I needed and someone who loved me, to see everything there was to see while we were young and wild enough to drink the experience dry.

The sun set, and we watched it in awe. There weren’t words, we both felt it as we grabbed each others hands and watched the sun disappear.

We sat for awhile, in the dark. It was so quiet, save for a few coyotes howling somewhere not close, not far away either.

I think we both thought a lot that night in the silence about the gravity of what we were undertaking.

What we were leaving in the metaphorical rear view mirror. The stress of the jobs we finally were leaving, after a year of talking, planning, promising.

Wondering whether we’d made good choices. Whether this was insanity or genius.

When we finally called it a night, it was late. Later than we’d ever normally be up. Tucking into that bed I was so glad I’d made, we drifted off to sleep.

In the morning, we’d heartily agree that it was the best night’s sleep we’d had in ages—the magic of the road blessed us with peace at last.