Two Weeks In
When friends have asked how the first couple weeks have been, my answer has been: “umm, mixed.” The two weeks leading up to our departure were a whirlwind of packing, moving, life admin, and logistics. We hadn’t even decided which direction we were going until a week before we left. In my mind, preparing to leave was the hard part, but leaving? That would be easy. We’ve camped in the 4Runner plenty of times before, albeit never for five weeks, but we knew what to expect. And, I figured, after two weeks of frenzied moving, preceded by a month of frantic work departure preparation, hitting the road with nothing but the horizon ahead of us would be a breeze, right?
Wrong.
On day 1, with the 4Runner fully loaded, Lee noticed the rear suspension was spongy, and we couldn’t off-road with it in that condition. Our planned one night in Napa turned into three, and since there is barely public land in the area, we had to pay for a campsite (something we avoid at all costs). A couple days later, we were caught in an unseasonably cold, wet front that hit the entire Pacific Northwest, which put a literal damper on our plans to camp in Mount Shasta and Bend. Almost all of the hiking and biking we had planned on doing were buried under multiple feet of snow, and after a week of thwarted plans, we begrudgingly decided to come back to California, where the call of warmer, drier weather was too tempting to ignore.
At this point, we were stressed, over budget, disappointed by our cancelled plans, perpetually cold, and had yet to fall into a rhythm. On top of that, Lee’s auditory symptoms were relentless, casting a cloud over everything he tried to enjoy, including me (I am not a quiet person by nature, which is tough when your partner is hypersensitive to noise). While we had enjoyed pockets of fun in the first week and a half, they were short-lived, and we were spending most of our time feeling frustrated with one another and sorry for ourselves. Being in nature is something that has always brought calm and closeness into our relationship; perhaps naively, I thought that we would settle into the same routine that we’ve found so easily when camping for long weekends, but of course, this wasn’t a weekend trip. We had just put our life into storage, left our jobs, and were embarking on a year of travel. Even without any hiccups, of course it would be a challenge to adapt. Despite this rational knowledge, we both felt some measure of despair, and I couldn’t help but worry that I had made a huge mistake and that I should have let Lee have time and space alone on this trip. At the same time, I felt guilty for feeling this way; I should be grateful to have this time with Lee, I’m privileged to have the option to do something like this, and I’m overlooking opportunities to find beauty in the struggle and live in the present moment. At least these were the things I was telling myself.
We silently made our way south from Bend to Quincy, CA, both sullen and feeling distant from one another. As we drove, the rain lightened and the clouds parted to light up one of the most beautiful drives we had ever taken. We were in Northeast California, where we passed through bright green meadows, dotted with livestock and flanked by massive, snow-topped peaks. We drove through mountain passes to emerge on the other side overlooking deep valleys, glowing gold and green in the late afternoon sun. As we found a campsite at the base of Mount Hough, our destination for the next few days, we breathed a sigh of relief when we opened the door to 50-degree night air, balmy in comparison with the 25-degree nights we had recently passed.
The next morning, our spirits a bit higher, we drove up the mountain to scope out a campsite at the very top. The site was, to put it lightly, perfection. It overlooked an alpine lake, snow-covered cliffs, and panoramic views of the mountains around us. The only barrier between us and the campsite was a quarter mile, about 200’ of which was steep, off-camber, and snow-covered. Lee illustrates the experience thoroughly here, but the tl;dr is that we very nearly didn’t make it. After a week and a half of disappointment, frustration, and upended plans, I was not willing to accept this failure. As the 4Runner’s wheels spun hopelessly in the slush, I dug out the wheels and crammed sticks and anything with traction that I could find underneath them. Lee inched up the hill while I stumbled around the car, adding more sticks and shoveling out more snow. Finally, after an hour and a half trying to get through that 200’ stretch, we made it through, and we got our campsite.
Mount Hough has felt like a turning point in this trip. Since arriving, we’ve enjoyed sunny, warm weather, beautiful hikes, and world-class bike trails. Our only disappointment has been clouds obscuring the lunar eclipse. This is the camping we know and love, and we have fallen into an easy routine. We both feel lighter, relaxed, and more connected. We know that there will be challenges, disappointments, and frustrations ahead, and days when we will feel tired of travel and each other. But the past three days has felt like the recharge we needed to tackle those speed bumps head-on and together.
