All The Outdoor Things
Camping Road Trip From Washington To Texas With My Dog!
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Just over a year ago, I sold my house and most of my belongings, more than ready for something new, but not quite sure what that was yet. While I was working out what would come next, I decided I'd head to Texas to visit family for a while and just let the dust settle for a moment...or two. The drive from Washington to Texas is not short by any means. I typically would have driven through Idaho and Utah and then down to New Mexico but it was February and I didn't want to drive over that many mountain passes and stay in hotels the entire time. What I really wanted to do was an epic camping road trip with my dog Lily. So the plan was to head south through Oregon and drive down the 101, see places like Big Sur and the rest of the California coastline, where I could find more mild winter weather to camp in. But Mother Nature had other plans and those plans included an atmospheric river situation in Northern California that took out roads with mass flooding and land slides.
We had no choice but to adjust our course and travel further inland. Lily and I stayed in a hotel our last couple of nights in the Columbia River Gorge, just miles from the house we had called home for the last four years and made one last trip to some of our favorite hiking spots. It was really exciting to be starting something new, but also sad because we were leaving without a very loved member of our pack...Ranger. He had passed just 8 months before and knowing we were hitting the road in much the same way the three of us had done when we moved to Washington was bringing out all the feels. In hindsight, it's probably why I didn't want to take the same path back to Texas. I didn't want to go back to all those spots without him.
So with the few items we hadn't sold or sent back to Texas on a moving truck, Lily and I loaded into our Subaru Crosstrek and hit the road! It was beautiful! Just me and my dog exploring new places we'd never been. We stopped when we wanted to stop and explored and other days we drove straight through. We saw Mount Shasta, the Sacramento River and public gardens in Redding, CA. There was field after field of incredible citrus fruits and the novelty of Palm Springs! Side note - the KOA outside of Palm Springs was a hoot! They had an ice cream social and cheeseburger party for the entire campground. Arizona was beautiful! We stopped at the Petrified Forest National Park - all of the trails are dog friendly so that was one of our favorite spots. If you aren't a hiker the drive through the park is worth the entrance fee alone. Sedona is....incredible. I will definitely be going back there. The deep red of the soil and rock was something I'd never seen before. So many of the galleries and restaurants are dog friendly - some of the restaurants even had menus for the dogs! I was happily surprised by Arizona and its natural beauty. It has so many outdoor things to offer.
Now I have to admit, for whatever reason, I didn't document much of our journey but the photos I do have make me think, "why didn't we take longer?" Why did I push so hard to make it to Texas. Sometimes I think maybe the freedom of having nowhere to be, no time frame made me feel a little unsteady during this roadtrip. You get so use to just having to grind through life, always hustling. And when the rare opportunity to do the complete opposite presents itself...maybe it just seems too good to be true? I've found myself thinking that more often lately. "I should be doing more, "I'm not doing enough", "I'm wasting this time I've been given." But looking back over the last year, I can see that I have been moving forward at a steady pace, that I have been making progress toward creating the life that I want. I remind myself often to be in the moment and not take this time for granted. That I can't figure out my entire life in just one day, or week or month or even one year. I remind myself frequently that creating and cultivating a full and joyful life takes time. Time to push forward and make progress and time to rest and reflect. This road trip that Lily and took together was just the start of that new life and Im so glad we did it. Now I'm not saying that selling everything and going on a road trip with your dog will solve all your problems or present you with some great revelation about life, but it sure is a hell of a place to start!
