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Up to this point it doesn’t really feel like our trip has started, just the intro to our adventures. And before I dive further into the some of the stories of the trip, I want to preface a little bit what this trip looked like as a whole. As mentioned earlier, Mikal and I did the absolute bare minimum of planning, this was a theme that was unwavering during our time on the road. When people ask how the trip went, I often say we didn’t go on a road trip, we lived out of our car. What I mean by that is we didn’t plan out all the perfect hikes and take the picturesque pictures in every national park. In fact, we really didn’t go on that many hikes. We lived out of a car in some beautiful places. The beauty of being on such a long trip is you lose this pressure to pack in everything you can in a short amount of time. This allowed us to just hang out at our campsite’s day after day without any anxiety that we were wasting time. Most days we wouldn’t even know where we were going to camp until it was getting dark. We were just living life day to day, not having any stresses or worries. It was the most relaxing six weeks you could imagine. Okay, enough of that for now, back to the beginning of the road trip.

Attempt #2 was off to the same start as the first, cruising west on I90 with our headphones in, lost in our own little worlds as we drove through cornfields and trees. Nothing too memorable was taking place, but for some reason it finally felt like we were on our way and that we had gotten the bad luck out of the way, that it would be smooth sailing at least for a little bit. After a few hundred miles we stop at a gas station somewhere in south Dakota. I remember it being swelteringly hot, like step out of the car and start to sweat kind of hot, like AC is full blast the whole drive kind of hot. I am not sure if we outwardly said this or this just became a thing, but every time we would stop for gas we would go and get snacks. Yes, we were trying to be cheap on this trip, but picking up chips, sunflower seeds, and caffeinated beverages at every gas station just made it feel like a road trip. This was a theme that started at this gas station and held true throughout the trip. Mikal and I probably consumed enough chips to last a lifetime in the following couple of weeks. I cannot remember exactly what the first snack of the trip was but if I was a gambling man, I would say jalapeno cheddar Cheetos and Kansas City BBQ sunflower seeds for me and some kind of flavored potato chip for Mikal. Then we just kept driving, soaking in the changing landscapes from corn fields to prairie to forests. We wanted to have somewhat of a plan of where we would be staying the first night after the chaotic last few days, so we booked a campsite in advance. Fast forward a day of driving and we arrived at this mom-and-pop campground that felt more resort like than we were anticipating. They had a bar, live music, cabins, and mostly RV spots, except a little plot of land where all the tent campers set up for the night. It was pretty packed in there and I wanted a little extra space, so I grabbed my hammock and ventured down the slopes of a little hill to walk along the creek, coming across two half dead trees that would make do for my bedroom for the night. Mikal and I made dinner, some homemade chili my mom had sent with us and a kielbasa sausage. We then shaved some sticks and rolled dough around them, cooking it over our portable camp stove and eating the slightly burnt outside, not-so-slightly doughy inside off of the sticks. We decided to play some cards, with our camp chairs facing each other and a cutting board resting on both of our knees. A bag of Mike & Ike’s next to us as a reward for the winner of each round. The night went quickly; playing a few card games, some friendly conversation with our neighbors, and very minor planning for the next day that consisted of when we would wake up and when we planned on arriving at Glacier National Park.

The next day was much of the same, cruising west through South Dakota and much of Montana. The most memorable part for me was stopping to take a break and eat lunch, we were an hour or so west of Billings and pulled off at a random rest stop. It was another scorcher, but extremely windy, so it gave off that feeling of really being out there on the plains/edge of the mountains. Everything felt dry, the grass was yellow and dead looking, the wind blowing a bit of dust. Mikal and I sat at a table and ripped off pieces of bread and dipped it in artichoke dip, putting chunks of cheese and summer sausage on top. There really wasn’t much more to this, but for some reason looking back on the trip this lunch break stands out as memorable. I think it stood out because eating at a picnic table alongside a highway isn’t something I ever do besides when I am on a cross country road trip. This is one of the beauties of traveling, oftentimes the most monotonous things can be special. Finding extra joy in the in-between moments is not limited to traveling but being in new places helps me romanticize the small moments and not take them for granted. I think this is something that is oftentimes overlooked about traveling, that we aren’t just experiencing new places, but teaching ourselves little lessons about mindset that we can bring back to our day-to-day life. It’s a reminder to get out and create these little moments, that these feelings I have when traveling can be brought back into my life on a daily basis. I think part of the lesson here is to slow down. That you have time to stop and smell the roses and soak in what is happening around you. Even if those roses are a dusty concrete picnic table on the side of the highway in the middle-of-nowhere Montana. The slow pace of this trip allowed there to never be a rush with Mikal, we were able to stop and check out a view or get a beer if we wanted and that is something I want to incorporate more into our busy lives, so not always rush onto the next thing.

Feeling full and refreshed me packed up our lunch and hopped back in the car, it was Mikal’s turn to drive for a bit. However, this didn’t turn out to be a very relaxing break from driving for me. My car is a manual and Mikal’s extensive history of driving a manual consists of killing my car about three times when I was trying to teach him a year ago. We thought this would be a good place to give it a go, as all he had to do was get it into sixth gear and toss on cruise. To be honest, Mikal did quite well and never killed the engine, only some minor shakes getting it into first. In fact, the only reason we switched back to me driving after 150 miles was because he said he felt bad with how anxious and uncomfortable I was sitting in the passenger seat watching him drive. That was the first and last time Mikal drove on the 8,000 miles of the trip, not necessarily because I didn’t trust him, I was just more comfortable driving, and he was more comfortable in the passenger seat navigating and researching where we would be staying that night. We sort of just fell into our roles and never had good reason to switch, ten times out of ten I would rather be the one driving on a road trip than not and it worked out that Mikal liked riding shotgun. After easing back into the driver seat, we kept cruising west, eager to get to our first national park and set up camp at Glacier. We stopped for gas right outside Glacier and got water and beer for the night, then ventured into the edge of the park, sitting on the edge of our seats with anticipation. We had found a campground on the edge of the western side of the park that looked like it had some pretty views of a lake so decided we would go there; it was still about 30 or so minutes away. The drive to get there was breathtaking. At first it was a reasonably curvy road with small birch trees lining the edge of the pavement. The sun was getting lower on the horizon as it turned to golden hour and lit up the trees and mountains. After a bit of the forest driving, we were driving uphill fast, getting higher and higher before we came around this bend and I looked behind us and down on a massive forest filling in the valley between the mountains, it was stunning. The drive only got better from there, after we reached the top, we started to go down windy roads driving towards a massive lake with mountains outlining it. I regretfully never pulled over to take pictures because we were in a rush to get to the campsite and set up before it got dark out (ironic, I know). A few minutes later we arrive at the entrance of the campground down near the lake. It’s closed. First example of our severe lack of planning biting us in the ass. We quickly take out our phones and start googling where we can stay. The sun sets in about 30 minutes, and I knew I didn’t want to be driving some of the roads when it got dark out. We decided to send it through the entire park and found an open campground on the west side. It was an hour drive. We turn around and book it back up the hill, racing the sun to get there as fast as we can. It was fun, driving fast on these curvy roads made me feel like I was in a race. That was until we hit one of the sketchiest roads I had ever driven on. If anybody reading this has driven through Glacier, they might know what I am talking about, but it is a road cut straight out of the side of the mountain. On one side you have the mountain coming basically into the road, the other side is a massive drop off inches after the pavement ends with no guardrail. I hit the brakes hard once I realized the instant change in road conditions and had to change my mindset from race car driver to if you drive a foot off the road you are going to fall a long, long way. Mikal doesn’t do heights very well, and the passenger side was right on the edge of this drop off, so he covered his head and told me to tell him when it is safe to look. Heights are typically not a big deal for me, but I can tell you I was white-knuckle driving for the next few minutes going around these bends. It baffles me how people drive these roads without guardrails in a massive RV or pulling a trailer, I would be terrified. Once we got into some more solid ground it was back to racing mode, and I fully embraced this idea of racing day light. I was cruising along these windy roads, two hands on the wheel and sitting upright, adrenaline pumping a little bit. Up until this point it was the most fun I have ever had driving (this would change after I drove the entire Pacific Coast Highway). The sun had already set and we were losing daylight fast, checking the map to see how much further we had every few minutes. Finally turning into the Lake McDonald campsite, we found a decent spot and checked in. Quickly throwing up our hammocks in the dark and setting up camp. After getting everything organized, we made some dinner and had a few beers. It was pretty late at this point and most of the other campsites had gone to bed. Maybe I was still riding a bit of a high from the drive, or we were feeling adventurous after finally getting to our first destination and having a few beers, but we decided to go explore. There weren’t any clouds that night and all the stars came out to play. I grabbed my camera and tripod and a few beers to fill the pockets and we set out. I can still feel the tingling of contentment walking down this road cut out of a forest with thousands of stars poking between the treetops. Knowing we are in one of the most beautiful places in the world walking down a road in the quiet that only the darkness of a forest at night can bring. The feeling that I am exactly where I need to be and completely content at being able to exist in this place at this time. We walked in silence a bit, sipping on our beers and soaking in the night until we came across the boat landing where the trees cleared away and the full night sky was visible. It was the most stars I have ever seen before, with the milky way stretched horizontally across the sky. I love looking up and seeing the depth of the sky with more and more stars coming into view wherever you look. I set up my tripod and snapped off a few pictures, talking to Mikal and just staring at the wonder of the world and universe that we could see with our naked eye. Looking at the sky at night always makes my mind go crazy, feeling so small in the magnitude of life. It makes me feel something that I cannot find the words for, that life is so bizarre, and we exist on this little planet floating in a sea of stars and space. That we are able to think consciously about the significance of it and where we fit in the grand scheme of time and place. I feel so free from the laws of life and so content with where I am in that exact moment. Even writing this now I am struggling to put this feeling into words, but I think you know if you have ever sat outside at night and looked up at the sky and allowed your mind to wander. It is truly an ineffable feeling. And being on the edge of a lake in Glacier National Park at midnight, sipping on a beer and taking pictures really intensifies this state of mind and puts me in a beautiful place mentally. After a fair amount of time, I walk down the dock and start talking to a guy taking pictures out there. Just talking about where he is from, what he is doing chilling out here and what a crazy thing this life is. After half of an hour or so I head back to Mikal, who fell asleep on the ground staring at the sky. I wake him up and we start the twenty-minute walk back to our campsite without saying much but just allowing the emotion and feelings we are having to soak into our memories. We get back to our campsite and crawl into our hammocks, zip up our sleeping bags and fall asleep beneath a blanket of stars. We have officially started our adventure and this night could not have been a better way to kick it off.