When I was 30, I owned a sporty Volkswagen Golf, and I loved to tear around in it like I was . On road trips, I鈥檇 turn on the radar detector, peg the engine past 90 miles per hour, and stretch the gas in my tank to fumes to minimize stoppages. I timed my gas station breaks like Indy pit stops.
Traveling with Artemis, the Airstream, has put an end to that nonsense. Like it or not, long, fast days are the antithesis of pulling a travel trailer.
For one, the Chevy Colorado, while perfectly adequate for the task, is on the small side of the truck spectrum. With some 6,000 pounds of trailer behind us fully loaded, we鈥檇 win no races. And Artemis can get a bit wobbly much over 65 miles per hour, especially in the wind, a near-constant in the West. We also burn through gasoline when hauling, averaging no more than 13 miles per gallon.聽Frequent gas stops are mandatory.
At first, the dawdling pace offended me. I wanted to hurry up, go farther, see it all. An early stop felt like a failure because it might mean missing out on some park or wilderness or mountain down the road. I was clinging to the impatience of my youth.
Yet I鈥檝e learned that one of the聽joys of living on the road is that you can make it up as you go. If we drive to a new location and don鈥檛 like it, we can move the next day. If we鈥檙e fond of a place, we can stay a week or a month. There鈥檚 no set agenda, no itinerary, no endpoint.
It isn鈥檛 only about pacing, either. It鈥檚 about seeing what鈥檚 around you rather than looking down the road. Jen and I discovered this again a few weeks ago in southern Colorado. Following a job at, our plan was to beeline to Summit County. Google Maps said the drive would take four hours, which seemed reasonable, if aggressive, after several days of dawn-to-dusk shooting. But once in the truck, we were both exhausted and dozy. We only made it to Del Norte, 40 minutes down the road.
The last time we stopped in Del Norte was maybe 12 years ago. What was once a poky little place has grown up. In the past, the only reason to come here was on climbing trips to Penitente if you lost a piece of gear, which might be replaced at a dark little hardware store that doubled as a climbing shop. Today, there鈥檚 a hip brewery, , a freshly renovated historic hotel with a quaint bar, , and a bustling outdoor shop called Kristi鈥檚 that鈥檚 brimming with gear for climbing, biking, fishing, camping, hiking, and pretty much anything else you might want to do.
The guy behind the counter at Kristi鈥檚 raved about in the area and offered me loose, photocopied maps. It reminded me of two decades ago. Despite my exhaustion, I couldn鈥檛 resist the lure of new trails, so I persuaded Jen to wait, then聽pedaled up Spruce Street toward Lookout Mountain and the recently constructed . I didn鈥檛 expect much, but the trails turned out to be excellent. By the time I returned, it was late afternoon. We didn鈥檛 want to drive into the night, and we had another map of new trails, just 20 minutes up the road. So we decided to hole up at and have a run and ride in the morning before continuing north. Like the Pronghorn system, the trails at Penitente were unexpectedly good: reminiscent of , minus crowds.
We were so smitten with this bit of Colorado that we鈥檇 have spent another couple of days there if it hadn鈥檛 been for an appointment in Summit County. Instead, we begrudgingly packed up and rolled out. As we slowly rambled north, it occurred to me that we鈥檇 have never seen Del Norte if it weren鈥檛 for Artemis. For years, we鈥檝e sped past it en route from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Denver, and we would have continued to do so. It鈥檚 not a destination that ranked on our list. And yet we鈥檝e already vowed to return in autumn鈥攎aybe sooner.
Jen and I have recommitted to traveling shorter distances and pulling over in places we don鈥檛 intend to stop. From a bar stuffed with fine bourbons to hills brimming with new trails, you never know what you might find. Besides, even if my 30-year-old self would roll his eyes in scorn if he heard me say it, I鈥檝e come to prefer cruising to racing.