The Great American Road trip is a dream shared by many. I’ve done many over the years – California to Virginia, Colorado to California, Colorado to New York, Colorado to Iowa, all over New England, California to Vancouver, and other shorter excursions. Between 2016 – 2020, living in Colorado, my love and I practiced van life every chance we got. We hopped in Brown Sugar (Shug), his VW Westphalia on weekends, during summer break, spring break, winter break, any window we could find. As a couple we were made for the adventure of the open road. We built camp fires, skinny dipped in secluded lakes, took midnight walks under the stars, washed off in ice cold rivers, and my favorite activity – read each other to sleep. We explored every nook and cranny of the beautiful state of Colorado, then went further into Montana, Yellowstone to visit old faithful, and ventured to Moab in Utah. The most epic thing we did was take a special journey to the direct sightline for the full solar eclipse in August 2017. For us, the best choice was to head over to Wyoming. It was a couple days drive with several stops along the way. We were in what felt like the middle of nowhere. If you’ve every done roadtrips in the middle of America you know that you are often indeed in the “Middle of Nowhere”. You can look around for miles and see nothing but a vast natural landscape. It’s humbling, and frightening and awe inspiring. You quickly settle into your own thoughts, and must find comfort there. We navigated with a large 15×11’’ road atlas. Remember those, the kind with intricate details, backroads, and parks? Honestly, it served us much better than our phone aps. We penciled in the sightline latitude and drove to the closest place we could find that was campable. After driving around in the dark for about an hour and almost being attacked by a wild buffalo, we finally found a perfect “lakeside” refuge called Boysen reservoir. A secluded manmade lake surrounded by sand, trees and large boulders. It felt like a beach oasis. We pulled in and camped right next to the water. We spent the next few days swimming, meditating, walking around the reservoir, napping, reading, writing, cooking, and star gazing by the campfire. Our three days ended after we climbed a giant thirty foot boulder to witness the solar eclipse. As the moon fully covered the sun everything went dark, it was eerie and awesome, and I vowed at that moment to be at the next one wherever it was going to be. The giant clock in the sky ticked forward and the pilgrimage ended. We kissed on top of the boulder and agreed that the sacred moment had sealed our love. It was an epic moment. 

If you would like to practice your writing skills by compiling some of your most epic moments in life join us for a year long study in the Epic Moments Writing Group. We meet once a month. 

Moab Utah

Moab, Utah

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