The Beginning: My First Solo Trip in the GMC Suburban

After my dad and I built out the back of the Suburban, I hit the road with no real plan other than “make it to Glacier eventually.” That was the midpoint. Everything else was just kind of… up to the wind. And gas prices. And my own stubborn lil heart.

First official stop: visiting Abby in Colorado. But before that, I had to cross like, half the country. So I started chipping away at it. Through Pennsylvania (which never ends), then most of Ohio. Slept behind a brewery in Marysville that had surprisingly good food and even better beer. That sounds like a paid ad, but it’s not. The sunset that night looked like it had been filtered through a frosted beer glass.

I woke up with the sun and went on to cross Indiana. Somewhere in the middle of flatland, I stumbled upon a bee farm, Hunter’s Honey Farm, and got a personal tour, which was magical and random in the best way. Missouri followed. I found a quiet campsite way off the highway. It was misty and sweet at first, ducks waddling through puddles, rain tapping gently on the roof. And then… chaos. Can’t get into it here, but let’s just say I found myself driving through a thunderstorm at 1am trying to outrun a very weird situation. If you ever catch me with a drink in hand, ask me. (Unless you’re my parents.)

The next morning I was driving through rain again, but made a pit stop at a roadside farm that had a hand-painted sign and an adorable little cashier. Picked up bacon and eggs for the week and felt wildly proud of myself. Then, I landed at a small pond campsite outside Topeka, Kansas. Trails, a dock, that sort of thing. The sky that night was showing off in the most quiet way—deep purples behind storm clouds, the kind of dusk that makes you feel like you’re inside a painting. Butterflies hitched a ride on my window curtain while I read Terry Tempest Williams.

And then came the Kansas-to-Colorado haul. Storms again, of course. White-knuckle hail driving. I stopped at a dispensary at one point just to recalibrate the vibes. Solar panels were hanging on for dear life. Around 4pm I finally made it into Colorado but the weather wasn’t done with me. I pulled over in Peyton and cooked up breakfast for dinner—bacon and eggs from Missouri, Kodiak pancakes, and, of course, zero syrup. An actual crime.

Next stop: Great Sand Dunes. I’d never seen dunes like that before and I was amped. I parked the truck at some dispersed camping with mountain views. I felt like I won the ioverlander lottery. I went on to cook up some filet mignon, roasted potatoes, and pumpernickel bread. I ate it while watching the sun melt behind the ridgeline. Felt kind of like a cowboy with a cast iron and a dream.

But then… boom. My truck started shaking like I was in an earthquake. Terrifying. I froze. And then—a loud MOOOO from right behind me. A cow. A goddamn cow was using my truck like a back scratcher. I Googled it. Turns out cows go hard when they’re itchy. They’ll rock a car like it’s a carnival ride. By the time I realized this I was getting attatcked from all directions. I climbed to the front at one point and hit my headlights on. What I saw looked like it was out of a Stephen King novel. Even more spooked, I realized I just had to wait them out. Which took… a while. Finally, they subsided, and I drifted off to sleep.