LONG STORY SHORT By Kristine McGowan This newsletter will be either the most depressing one I’ve written or the most cathartic. The last two weeks have not been easy. We set out on the last leg of the Big Trip on July 1, and while our travels have mostly gone well, lots of other things have gone wrong. We’re having issues with our trailer’s slide-out room. One of our window shades broke. Our truck’s check-engine light turned on (again).* A rock chipped our windshield. A prong on our 30-amp extension cord busted open. We discovered that we didn’t meet our budgetary goal for the second leg of the trip.** We’ve had worse-than-expected cell signal, we’ve been towing through heat waves, and to top things off, we had to get creative to level our trailer on an uncomfortably steep campsite—some digging was involved—in a national park where the park’s main feature is closed to the public. None of these items is catastrophic or trip-derailing. But they are frustrating, and combined, they’ve made for an exhausting two weeks. At times, they’ve also made me wonder: Why are we still doing this? But then I remember the wolf we saw in Yellowstone last August. And the pod of orcas we spotted in the San Juan Islands in September. The 4×4 roads we explored in Canyonlands and Capitol Reef in November. Canoeing down Big Bend’s Rio Grande in February and through the Everglades’ mangrove forests in April. Catching up with old friends in D.C. this spring. Watching the Ohio sky undulate with the pinks and purples of the Aurora Borealis in May. And I remember: We’re doing this because it’s worth doing. And we’ve still got lots of places to see. I also try to remember that, as tough as the last couple weeks have been, they’re nothing compared to what we’ll be dealing with four months from now. We expect to finish the Big Trip in November, just a few days shy of Thanksgiving. After that, we’ll head home to begin the task of reestablishing our non-nomadic lives, starting with a search for jobs after being out of work for 18 months. That prospect feels overwhelming. But if the last two weeks—and, really, the Big Trip as a whole—have taught me anything, it’s that we can do hard things. We’re more capable than I’d ever imagined before we hit the road. We’ll be OK. And that’s something worth learning. Where have we been?Bandelier National Monument, N.M.  We thought we’d already climbed some big ladders, but Bandelier National Monument had a thing or two to show us. Once a home for the Ancestral Pueblo people, Bandelier preserves their masonry, petroglyphs, and cliff dwellings, and one of those dwellings—Alcove House—sits very high in the cliffs: To reach it, we had to climb 140 feet of stairs and ladders up the cliff face. Our legs felt a bit wobbly on our way back down. Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colo.  I don’t think I’ve found a place this striking since we visited Dry Tortugas. Great Sand Dunes National Park is a scene of merging contrasts, where 14,000-foot peaks meet the tallest sand dunes in North America—quite literally. The dunes sit so close to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains that they look ready to shake hands. During our time here, I felt I had one foot planted in the mountains and the other in the Sahara. Rocky Mountain National Park, Colo.  We came to Rocky Mountain National Park with a goal: to redeem ourselves. When we first visited this park in 2017, we were not prepared. On our only hike, we bailed one mile in because we were too out of shape to finish the four-mile trek (though we blamed it on “the altitude” then). This time, however, we not only bagged a nine-mile hike, but we also climbed 1,710 feet in elevation to Sky Pond, an alpine lake sitting at 10,900 feet in the Rockies. Consider us redeemed, no matter what Jason’s face says. Where are we going next?We’ve entered South Dakota, our first new U.S. state on this leg of the trip, and we’re going to explore it for a while before heading through Wyoming and into North Dakota, and finally to the northern border of Minnesota.  98. Wind Cave National Park, S.D.
99. Custer State Park, S.D. 100. Badlands National Park, S.D. 101. Devil’s Tower National Monument, Wyo. 102. Theodore Roosevelt National Park, N.D. 103. Fargo, N.D. 104. Voyageurs National Park, Minn.
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