The original plan was to travel through October. In my head, we would be back in the Colorado area in early November. But by the time we got to Seattle we were both feeling exhausted. It was especially difficult for Amanda. I give her credit for being able to balance work and travel for so long. To continue to do that for another month and a half was not feasible.
We also started to realize that it was becoming difficult to be present and make the most of our time in all these amazing places we were visiting. It’s impossible to have the experiences you want to have when you don’t have the energy to explore the way you want to. So we decided to head back earlier than expected.
It took us about six days to get to Grand Junction from where we were in Washington. Roughly twenty hours of driving. That’s about 1,300 miles in a week. It wasn’t an easy drive by any means.
We made a big push in the first few days. We drove about 4 hours from Forks to Longview on Sunday and then another 4 hours into central Oregon the next day. Not much to note here. We got a hotel in Longview. We needed it after being on the Olympic Peninsula for two weeks. And with the big drive ahead of us, we needed to get some rest.
After three days we were back in Twin Falls, where we decided to stop and get an AirBnB for a few days. It made a lot of sense for us because it was a place we were already familiar with. We had spent close to a week here in June and it was an area we enjoyed being in.
From there we had two more days of driving. We passed through Salt Lake City but we didn’t stop there. I had already been there before I met Amanda. And she didn’t have an interest. Not really much to see there unless you go into the mountains and do some hiking.
We decided to pass through Moab as we made it closer to Colorado, even though it was a little out of the way. The place where we met and this entire adventure started for the two of us. We took a bit of a detour to Dead Horse Point State Park. We did the hike around the rim of the canyon and the views of the Colorado River were really great.
Lots of mountain bikers here. The Moab area is a great place if you like to bike. I am not the strongest biker myself but maybe I will get better at it during the downtime I will have later this year. And if I get good enough maybe I can take up mountain biking too.
We weren’t able to find a campsite along the river close to Moab. It was the weekend and the fall is the best time to visit the area. The weather is perfect. So we drove further and further down the river road until we hit Onion Creek. We were able to snag the last campsite here.
That night, as the sun was setting, a storm rolled in. You could see the dark clouds slowly getting closer and closer to where we were. We made dinner and then we decided to hang out and watch the thunderstorm in the distance. A really good light show – no lie some of the best lightning I have ever seen. It reminded me a lot of the times when I would hang out on Alexandra’s balcony and watch the thunderstorms go off in the distance.
It rained a little by us but not enough to cause any issues getting out of the campground. I was a little concerned that the campground would flood because it was all clay. And there were already places that were waterlogged from the storms a few days prior. But we made it out alright.
The next day we were back in Grand Junction by the early afternoon. We had a reunion with Tom and his girlfriend and shared a few stories. I stayed there for two nights so I could rest up before my last leg of the trip.
It’s amazing how much space I have in the van now that Amanda has taken all of her stuff out. Funny how your perception changes. When I was traveling by myself I always felt that I didn’t have enough room for all the things that I wanted to bring. And now I feel like I have too much space.
It was a sad moment when I was leaving on Tuesday afternoon. We have spent the better part of three months traveling together, Amanda and I. You really get in the habit of being in this person’s presence. And that was about to change.
We both understand that it is going to be healthy to get some space from each other. But it will be a small challenge trying to adapt to traveling by myself again over the next few days.