USA 2023. Thoughts

This trip has been an interesting collage of experiments and new things. It was a very different trip, even as it was the same. I did have a lot of unknowns…intentional experiments that didn’t always work out, but always taught me.

As the trip came to an end, I have to admit, it doesn’t score as my best trip ever. It might be in the top 5, but that’s debatable. When I think about it though, that makes sense. Farther 2019(Yukon) may never be beat as best trip ever…and that’s ok.(not to say that I won’t try to beat it one day)

In the past, my trips have been built around something specific. One specific flavour. Whether it be a place(Yukon) or a road(Trans-Taiga). This trip changed major location every few days, which resulted in multiple flavours. I enjoyed that, but also missed really getting to know an area well.

In that vein, this trip was a bit of a whirlwind. It now holds my record for most kilometres in 3 weeks. And similar to Yukon, which still holds the record for most km in 1 and 2 weeks…it was a bit too much. I was looking back at the stats for the Yukon trip, and after the first 2 weeks, I slowed down to an average of 1,200km or less per week. On this trip, even 3 weeks in, I was still doing 2,100 km in a week. This was a bit of an experiment though…I knew that I had planned a trip that was high on kilometers. Now I have a better idea of how much is too much.

I played the tourist a lot on this trip, visiting some of the more well known national parks. It resulted in seeing amazing things and getting great photos, but I did miss my standard off-the-beaten path adventures. That’s probably why Moab was my favourite…it was back to my traditional style.

Having no detailed plan: I didn’t know from night to night where I was going to be camping. I have done this to some degree on trips before, and always found it stressful. This was an entire long range trip, with no campground plans. It was stressful at first, but I learned some strategies, and it became freeing in the end. On that note, I did no base camping. I stayed at one campground 2 nights when getting my camper top, and I twice stayed at a site for 2 nights, but only after packing up and then ending up at the same place the next night…without planning it. The camper top was a huge success here. Setup and take down was so incredibly easy, that I never felt the need to basecamp. I love the freedom of always having my gear with me to setup camp at a new spot if I discover one…however, there is something comforting to staying multiple nights at the same place. I do need to figure out a balance here.
Either way, I found some amazing places to camp that I probably wouldn’t have gone to if I had a plan.

I didn’t have a detailed budget for this trip. Previous trips I always had a detailed cost analysis, and I had become quite good at it…with a 3 month Yukon trip costing pretty much exactly what I calculated. My trip budgets are not about saving money. Rather, it’s to figure out what I would naturally spend, so I know how much I need….but while on the trip I generally spend money without thinking about the budget. In this case, I simply had a ballpark number that had no basis in any calculation…it was just a gut guess. I was a bit worried that I would be massively over budget, but somehow I ended up being just 10% over! I can give thanks to God that this is my first big trip where money was no worry at all….if I had been massively over budget, it would have been fine. Kind of crazy to think that with the purchase price of my camper top included, this trip cost almost double what my 3 month Yukon trip cost!

Most of this so far was kind of a bigger experiment in trips without detailed plans. While I’m not quite ready to put anything in stone, I still aspire to one day road trip central/south america, and that would be a trip that couldn’t be easily planned in detail. I think these experiments were largely successful and give me a better idea of how to put together a much bigger trip.

Otherwise, my big new experience on this trip was the desert. I generally dislike heat…I would prefer to be cold. They say the desert is a dry heat and that makes it less, which is true…but there are limits. Temperatures were in the 40s(Celsius) during the day, and in the 30s at night. I gather from talking to locals, that the heat wave doesn’t necessarily mean it’s hotter, but that it stays hot longer, and doesn’t get as cool at night. When I was outside, my cellphone and laptop would struggle with heat above 40. By 45, they were both close to unusable. I did have one blog entry that I wrote and posted in the air conditioned Jeep because the laptop was overheating, and my phone couldn’t do data without overheating.
Generally, I was able to sleep at night with the temperature in the low 30s…in part due to the camper top. It has big mesh windows that allow great ventilation. My waterproof tent with no windows would have been too hot. There was one night when it only went down to 38, and what little breeze there was, was hotter than the base temperature. That was torture and I didn’t sleep at all that night. In that campground, the cold water taps put out hot water, and the handles to doors would almost burn you.
In the desert, shade is the ultimate thing. When I arrived at campgrounds or camped in the wilderness, I was always looking for a tree for shade…and there aren’t many of them. As I continue my jeep camper build, this will be fixed as I plan to get an awning.
The campgrounds seemed to be mostly empty, and talking to locals I learned that most people don’t do desert camping in the high summer…I’m just the naïve Canadian doing it. It was an interesting exercise in survival. I drank so much water…I was basically always thirsty.
I also ate less. I would have breakfast, and something for lunch, but by dinner time, at the camp spot, I would be too hot, and not wanting to use the cookstove or eat hot food. For the first few desert nights that meant I skipped dinner, and had a dry snack after dark. Eventually, whenever I was camped by a town, I would have a late lunch at an air conditioned restaurant before heading to the campsite.
The lack of rain(duh). On a trip, I usually use rain days as a forced break…a time to slow down and rest. With the lack of rain in the desert, I wasn’t taking these breaks at all, until I felt a little burned out and took a day off anyway. Something to keep in mind next time I’m in a desert.
All that being said, I loved the desert from an exploration standpoint, and even a bit of the tougher survival stuff just adds to the experience. Although I am now quite interested in these new battery powered small space air conditioners…I will definitely be looking into them.

Travelling in the USA was new as well. In general Americans were friendlier than I expected…although that differed depending on where I was. Utah and Idaho were especially friendly. I’m not used to walking into a gas station and getting a very cheerful greeting from the cashier.
Speed limits were quite high, especially when coming from Ontario. 75 and 80 mph seemed a bit crazy to a slow Jeep driver like myself, and I felt like it was hard on the Jeep in the hot desert. Although traffic was more hectic in the urban areas, it felt like there wasn’t as much blatant speeding as in Ontario, which made the driving a bit more chill….except for those times getting passed by transport trucks in Texas when I was already going 80mph…
I didn’t feel like anything was cheaper…and especially once I applied the exchange to CAD, things generally seemed more expensive. Part of the issue was probably that I spent quite a bit of time in California, which was the most expensive in general.
The Mexican influence in the south west surprised me…probably just because I’m not super knowledgeable on my US history.
I wasn’t expecting there to be so much desert.

Last thought. The US seemed really big…much bigger than I was expecting. I think that’s because I’m used to knowing that Canada is technically bigger…but of course we have large areas that can’t be driven through. In general though, it felt like even the remote areas were less remote. It was hard to truly get away from civilization…of course I largely followed the interstates…I know there’s probably more remoteness.

I’ve said before, this trip was meant to be a whirlwind…it was a scouting trip. I’m still not sure how enthused I am about exploring the US. In fact after this trip, I miss my Canadian explorations just a little. That being said, I loved Moab, and Utah in general. For sure I will be planning a return in the near future.

A trip like this has almost become routine. Something that seems easy to pull off. That’s crazy. I’m so thankful to God for these opportunities to experience His creation!

(I have more specific thoughts on the new camper top, but they will likely come in a separate post. For now: it rocks!)