All Roads Lead to Montana
Road Notes [04]
Driving across state lines into Montana for the first time, we didn’t even notice it. If you’ve ever driven on highway 90 through Eastern Idaho and Western Montana it’s impossible to tell the difference. Like most of our road trips, Ben and I have little planned until right at the moment the road is divided and we’re forced to choose North or South, East or West. In this particular moment we chose to drive towards Bozeman, Montana instead of north towards Glacier National Park and I can’t help but feel like someone or something was leading us in that direction.
We got to Bozeman on May 13th and quite by accident fell in love with the valley and the surrounding mountains, the wildness of it, the beauty. The town (though it is technically a city, I can’t quite call it one after spending the winter in a giant city such as San Diego) seemed to have everything we didn’t know that we were looking for. Almost by accident over the next week we were putting feelers out in the universe, wondering if perhaps this was the place for us.
In a matter of ten days, which looking back feels like an utter world wind, Ben applied and got accepted into the engineering program at Montana State University, I got a job in town working at one of the most beautifully curated galleries I’ve ever stepped inside and we toured and then got an apartment tucked in one of the back neighborhoods of town, a mile from both my new job and school. If anyones ever tried to get a reasonably priced apartment in Bozeman, in town, with dogs, you will understand how utterly miraculous this was that we so quickly were signing a lease. Everything seemed to fall into place in a way that I have never experienced before. So much so that every time I questioned our sudden departure from life on the road I reminded myself to let go of my anxiety and just let it all unfold, the path will find its way to you.
As of today, we’re about two weeks from moving back into a actual home and it is undoubtably bittersweet. Over the last almost two years I’ve been asked by many, “how long are you going to live on the road?” and my answer was always vague. I had no idea, we had no plans to settle down. Honestly when we left California early May we were planning a whole summer road trip, wandering from Idaho, through Montana and then heading even further east towards the Dakota’s and Minnesota. We really had no plans to park somewhere, to settle in. But it happened anyway.
Sometimes I feel like I’ve failed in some way living on the road. You see all the time people doing van life for five to seven years before they give it up. Part of me thought that we’d be on the road for years. There is so much to love about wandering about, with no destination in sight. Yet really I have to remind myself that I don’t know anyone personally who’s done what we just spent the last two years doing. I don’t know anyone who sold all their belongings and built out a camper and slept in parking lots and truck stops, gave up having a personal shower for almost two years and hasn’t had a single inch of personal space in so many moons. We took a chance that so few people take and it was the choice of a lifetime. One I’ll never regret or forget.
When I pull up my Google Maps on my phone, you can see every single place we’ve traveled. Over the years I’ve diligently tracked every spot I have slept (including my first solo road trip with just Kona in the winter of 2023), places we’ve showered, walked the dogs, coffee shops we’ve loved along the way, it’s quite astonishing to see literally how far we’ve wandered. In three years I’ve traveled across the country back and forth three times. I’ve slept in National Parks, stood on a mountain top and watched the Northern Lights, not through the screen of my phone but in up close and breathtakingly bright. I have put over 110,000 miles on my truck and drank my morning coffee with Kona across in some of the most spectacular places I have ever seen. I have had the freedom to wake up with no responsibilities, able to lay in bed and read, take wandering strolls with Ben and the dogs, play so much tennis and just truly live on my own terms. I’ve been fortunate to write the first draft of a novel I hope to finish sometime this fall. Life on the road has been an unbelievable experience, one that I worked so hard for, a dream I said out loud and found someone willing to dream it into existence with me. Someone who was willing to build us a home that no matter where we’ve been, has always felt safe and ours every single day.
So I’ll miss life on the road, already as I settle these last few weeks into a routine at work I can feel my body readjusting to commitments and schedules, more tired that I’m used to feeling after an eight hour work day. It’s a whiplash of a change and in some moments I mourn the loss of our detached from the real world freedoms. But there are things I am so thrilled about as we plant routes here for the next few years. I’ve already picked out a writing desk that I am so eager to be able to sit at in the mornings before work to write, to journal, honestly just to sit at and call it all mine. I haven’t had a desk in almost two years and I feel quite proud of my writing habits without one. Yet to scatter my little mementos from across the country, the river stones and red clay on my desk, to have stacks of books I’ve read and my own draft of my writing project never out of reach will be a simple luxury that I haven’t had in so long. For about twelve years, since returning home from studying in Denmark I’ve wished to live in a town that allows me to bike to and from work, to bike to the store, the library, the coffee shop to bike really anywhere but without having to live in a large city like New York or Boston. In about two weeks that will be my new commute to the shop. And I can’t tell you how thrilling it is for Ben and I to know that we will soon have our own bathroom again. A luxury that was easier to give up that we assumed but still we couldn’t be more excited to not have to plan out our showers and the get in the truck and drive to a gym to get clean.
Life on the road for us isn’t gone forever, it’s just changing course a bit. We will still have our beautiful tiny home on wheels that we’ll take on shorter trips around Montana, Wyoming and wherever the wind takes us when we’re up for it and our schedules are clear. Right now, writing this in the local coffee shop Wild Joes on Main Street, where we’ve become friendly with all the baristas and other locals who frequent this place most mornings, it feels really good to plant some roots, to slow down a bit and start making long term plans again. To find places that are ours, one with a dishwasher! To have family and friends excited about planning trips to visit us. A mailbox, a kitchen table, a little bit more space. A new town to discover and love. It’s funny how our whole life changed course on a good feeling and a whim, but after so many miles and months on the road, it felt right to pick our new home based on a feeling and the views of the mountains from a field full of wildflowers that welcomed us to town.
