The plan when we bought Artemis was to hit the road, see distant sites we鈥檇 long neglected, never look back. We鈥檇 visit friends in Lander, Wyoming, hit Mount Rainier and the Pacific Northwest, maybe overland to Alaska.
One thing you quickly discover while vagabonding: the road is never straight.
Road life affords some freedoms over being stationary, but work commitments and other day-to-day obligations still guide the course. Over the summer, I ended up in Sweden for two weeks for an assignment, and Jen went to Canada when I returned. After that, we headed to central Europe together for a story. It was all fantastic, but we were inching forward on our envisioned route so slowly that we decided to confine our summer and fall to New Mexico and Colorado.
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That felt like a comedown at first, but not for long. Too often we chase far-off, exotic places while overlooking what鈥檚 around the corner. And in the last few months, Jen and I have discovered鈥攐nce again鈥攖hat our Rocky Mountain backyard is full of compelling spots just as worthy a visit as anywhere.
Too often we chase far-off, exotic places while overlooking what鈥檚 around the corner.
Just an hour north of Santa Fe, is one of those places that we have sped by a million times on our way to the mountains of Colorado and Utah. But earlier this summer, as we were once again cruising past, we nosed in and found a sweet little campground offering $12-a-night sites with million-dollar views. The spot we scored sat on a rock promontory with views over the water to the scraggly Jemez mountains on the horizon, and听singletrack cut the hillside just 50 feet below us. We thought we鈥檇 stay a night, but with work-friendly听3G service, lots of trails and forest roads to explore by bike, and warm water temps for paddling and floating, we didn鈥檛 pull up anchor听for over a week.
We also ticked off a longtime ambition to visit , the Pueblo ruins situated in a hard-to-reach stretch of desert in New Mexico鈥檚 northwest corner. This national park is only 175 miles from Santa Fe, but it鈥檚 guarded by a rugged, dirt-road approach, which has always made the trip seem too long for a weekend. With Artemis, though, we rolled out one afternoon, spent a handful of nights that allowed us to explore the sites at our leisure, and continued rolling when we felt like we鈥檇 seen enough. We travel almost as herdsman, moving to fresh pastures once we鈥檝e gleaned what we can from a place.听
One of my favorite stops since we set out is an almost unknown site in the far northwest corner of New Mexico called . Years ago, I swore we鈥檇 go someday after seeing a photo, which made it look like a cross between Bryce Canyon and the salt flats of Bolivia. But it鈥檚 on the way to nowhere.
Signage to get there was almost nonexistent, and though Google Maps led us to a dusty parking lot, the metal BLM information booth and area map was so faded that we still wondered whether we were in the right place. But wandering out into the open desert, it was clear this was the spot.
We found a kaleidoscope of colorful sands and dunes, crumbling towers and hoodoos, and wild, sculpted rocks that looked like fantastical creatures. We were told by a Navajo friend in Gallup that the place is sacred to her people, and it鈥檚 easy to see why. Wind and rain have听strafed the land over millennia into a gorgeous, geographic atlas, and the silence was so bracing that it almost stunned us. This empty land, devoid of human touch, is a wilderness like it must have been hundreds and thousands of years ago. It鈥檚 not grandiose like a national park, but monumental like a calm sea reaching to the horizon. Visiting felt like someone had whispered us a secret. We spent several nights under a vast, black sky sprayed with stars and, when we finally had to peel away, swore we鈥檇 return. I hope Bisti never gets cell service, but at the same time, we had to connect and get back to work.
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We鈥檝e been wandering our home country like this for almost six months, and the landscape seems to perpetually expand. I can study the New Mexico map ad infinitum, and each time I discover a new state park, a sliver of wilderness, a promising scenic monument. Experience, it turns out, isn鈥檛 measured in landmarks or miles. 国产吃瓜黑料 is a mindset. Exploration does not have to equal exoticism.
Someday in the not-too-far-off future we鈥檒l make it to Lander and the Pacific Northwest. I鈥檓 certain those places will be as compelling as I鈥檝e imagined them. But I鈥檓 no longer convinced they鈥檒l be any better than the places within a few-hours drive. 听