I try to do two epic trips a year. One that I can trek to in under 24 hours. I’ll set up a camp hub and take in as much of a region as I can. I did it with the Florida Keys one year, Vermont/ Maine, West Virginia and already have plans to hit up Michigan Great Lakes area sometime early fall. My long trips are a little more intense and involve thousands of miles nomadic one night camping stands with gas station parking lots, Dyrt reservations, Hipcamp, state park campgrounds or my favorite, dispersed camping on public land. Both style trips do my soul justice although I’m swaying towards the shorter ones more and more. Driving for 16 straight hours, sleeping for 4 and then driving another 12 takes a chunk of your free time and is mentally exhausting. But there’s just so much shit I have/want to see out there..

My last big fat one I got a little greedy and tried to squeeze two trips into one. I had Glacier on my mind and I wanted to dip down to Tetons and hit my fav outdoor destination station Colorado.

10 days

It’s 33 hours to Glacier Park from where my ass is sitting on my sofa. It can be done in two days but I don’t suggest it. Nashville, St. Louis, Kansas City will see to it that the 33 hours will extend a little longer. I don’t play in big city traffic anymore. My last job before I got into Southern would send me to Atlanta every week. Southern Atlanta so I could drive through the heart of 85s to 20s and then some. Now I want to claw my skin off my bones when I hit congestion. I time my trips around the lull time of traffic when possible. I’ll hit the likes of of those cities before 7am or after 8pm whenever possible. I’ll drive 100 miles around the state to avoid the Jersey Turnpike in its entirety. I salute those of you that deal with that shit.

These epic trips are always adventurous because I rarely make plans only destinations. There are two extremes to traveling. The ones that map out their entire trip with stops for food and hotel stays, passes have already been purchased, reservations for dinner at the Laundry were made 8 months ago. They have everything budgeted out. If everything goes according to plan they’ll have a keychain for all 9 states to give to their in-laws. Then there’s the hobo train jumping style travel that see a pretty picture online and say “fuck yeah let’s do it!”

That’s me

Sometimes it works out great, every once in awhile it shits the bed. I get it. I don’t expect the other 300,000,000 residents of this country to stay out of my way on my trips. Weather can shit on your day, road construction, bad tourist destination traps, food poisoning and even expectations, actually it’s the expectations that can really kill your buzz. Some places just aren’t as fun as they look on the post card. Some spots everyone had the same post card so you are all standing on that ledge overlooking an amazing valley, all with your phones out, elbowing your neighbors or waiting in line to get that #headintheclouds #wanderlust hashtag to sell tickets to your IG life (hey I’m guilty as shit too). I pick destinations for a certain experience. It may to achieve epicness or to decompress for a few days, enjoy a solid dinner at a local cafe and walk the little downtown streets and take in the local culture. I drove to Maine to experience the sunrise on Cadillac Mtn and to eat a real lobster roll. I also wanted to climb Katahdin Mountain, the last peak on the Appalachian trail.

I drove to the Keys to watch that epic sunset in Mallory Square. I drove to Sedona for the vortexes, took my daughter to Mt Rushmore to start her own bucket list. Drove through New Orleans to eat at the Turkey and the Wolf. Drove up to Crested Butte, CO just to camp on the Washington Gulch, twice and always try to climb the Manitou on the way out. I have an adventure in mind and most of the time there’s one to be had.

On my last epic trip I had decided last minute (literally) to take a detour from my long trip. I was up towards the South Dakota border and made a quick decision to head sideways to the Badlands up there. Don’t sleep on South Dakota. It doesn’t get the rep it deserves being surrounded by the great state of Montana and right below your left knee is Yellowstone country. Lot of beauty in South Dakota. Take away the brutal winters and that might be where I could call home.

As I have mentioned I love dispersed camping. I don’t like crammed camping, bureaucratic picnic tables, rusted metal fire pits, rangers doing their interval drive bys to insure you aren’t petting the chipmunks or leaving snickers bar wrappers out for bears to sniff. I get it. It’s a necessity because most humans can’t behave themselves and think buffalo are cuddly. I always say let em learn the hard way. I’ve always got my camera handy.

For me, give me an unregulated camping pull off. Old BLM (bureau of land management) gravel roads that pull off to vistas, secluded tree lines out in the middle of nowhere is my vibe. No peeps or creeps, no electricity or water. When I travel I carry the same shit for one day as I would carry for 10. My truck is loaded for bear 24-7. No I’m not a doomsday prepper I just forget shit constantly so I keep it all in my truck at all times. The only volume of stock that changes are grub, water and clean socks. This is my ultimate jam. There’s something about making your coffee over an open flame and eating bacon and eggs on a mountain top with the sun in my face and wind through whatever I have hairy on me just resets my everything. It’s how the fuck we are supposed to live we just have forgotten how to. Scrolling through things to do when in SD I saw an article online about dispersed camping in an area aptly named “The Wall.” Aptly named due to the town’s name is also Wall. Yep Wall, South Dakota. It rests outside the badlands and it’s a good place to buy your 50/50 cotton poly biker tees with “Badlands” across the chest, Souix dream catchers, multicolored cigarettes lighters and since you’re in South Dakota you can find a good Ribeye steak at any gas station/hotel/tire center/movie theater/constaple. I drove next to the badlands my last trip up to Rushmore and decided to detour to check them out. I was more excited to camp on the outskirts of the badlands than to run around and play outside with them. It was currently 96°. There’s no shade if you are taller than a blade of grass. I did my diligence and toured the badlands and man, yes they are incredible. A must see. All the multicolored gulches, ravines, buttes and hoodoos. It’s like michaelangelo ant hills from a distance (this is why I don’t write poetry). I took pics, drove around in circles and stopped at a little “diner” inside the park. I have one form of advice for you travelers- don’t eat inside national parks. The food is always terrible. It’s barely edible and you’ll pay three times as much for whatever you’ll end up digesting terribly in the next several hours. Well, I did anyway because it was too damn hot to make lunch and I was taller than a blade of grass so I cooled off at the local food house and ordered my very first Indian taco. Bacon soda fried bread with whatever appropriate toppings that would make Taco Bell seem Michelin star worthy. Mine had 2 cups of sour cream, a pinch of bagged cheese (no origin known) a dollop of process guac, some ground beef? and some buffalo meat that must’ve been freeze dried during the mass slaughter of buffalo in the 1870s. Think of a deep fried taco pizza. It was underwhelming. I had two bites and threw it in my little truck trash bag I keep in the passenger seat floor. This is why I rarely eat out of my comfort zone.

I found my coordinates on my overlanding app for the locally famous, dispersed, camping area the Wall. A little dirt road pull off right outside of town , winds for a mile or two up a some rolling grass hills (they are indigenous in that area) and you crest over a left hand turn to see a long stretching vista that sits about 30-60 feet above the badlands. This goes on for miles. Its a popular spot to camp. There were RVs, campers and cars all along the horizon so I knew I had found the place. Some of these spots you have to depend on coordinates and not street signs. They can be tricky to find.

I found a spot to wedge between two other campers. There’s a healthy respect for solitude amongst overlanders in these undesignated areas. You pull off and give them space and distance. I try to keep at least 30-50 yards away if possible from my neighbors. There’s no protocol just don’t pull 20 feet away from another camper only because you like their spot. They got there first they earned it. Get there earlier next time. When I camp up in Linville I have 6 spots I try to land and they go in that order. I hit my favorite one first to see if it’s available. I don’t share that location with anyone.

I found a solid overlook right in the middle. I was about 15 feet from the cliff that dropped about 30 feet, on each side of me two other campers far enough away that I couldn’t hear their conversations or smell their camp food. I set out my little camp chair, heated up an MRE and melted into the sunset. It was hot but I didn’t care. I knew the winds from the plains would kick up soon and give me some free fan electricity. I waved at some of my camping companions and watched some cattle scattered down the rolling hills grazing behind me. Free range grazing is a thing here. You don’t speed in these areas. You think hitting a deer can fuck you see what happens time your Honda Civic t-bones a 1200lb steer. You’ll both become hamburger.

I have two camping set ups when I travel. I have my RTT (overland abbreviation for roof top tent) and I have a nook in my truck for quick naps in gas stations or if there are thunderstorms. You never read any advertisements concerning RTTs and thunderstorms. You’re fine inside the cab of your car during lightning storms. Not inside a tent on top. Those rubber wheels will not save you. There is a scientific explanation for this. You can look it up yourself just like I did. Learning is power just like the School House cartoon would teach us. Also I don’t have the typing energy. I’m sure I can link on here but I might fuck something up.

I crawled in my tent around 9pm, all windows unzipped because it was probably in the upper 70s still. I had a long drive ahead of me I wanted to pull up to Glacier around 3 the next day which would mean leaving right as the sunrises. I have no trouble falling asleep. I can go from smile to snore in 3 minutes. It’s staying asleep that’s always been my issue. Camping in the outdoors rarely allows me to sleep all night. Even in the safest of environments things can go bad real quick. You’re a spec of fly shit on a window sill when it comes to your relevance and relationship to Mother Nature. If you don’t respect that you’ll learn it the hard way. She’s not really your mother.

11ish pm

I finally got that grass plains breeze I was hoping for. It was just enough to whip up a little but pleasant enough to almost hum through my tent. I love a good summer breeze (no jokes y’all).

1:15am

That pleasant summer breeze picked up a little bit. My unzipped tent flaps stared making flag on a tent pole sounds. The zipper latches flapping around my fiberglass tent shell sounded like someone whipping my tent with a electric extension cord. I could hear thunder in the distance but I wasn’t concerned. I was in South Dakota that storm could be 100 miles away and heading south of me.

1:30

Ok I was wrong, I could smell rain. Rain is easier to smell in dry climates. In the south it always smells moist in the summer. You’ll smell the rain up there well before you see or hear it. I smelled it. And then I could see the horizon darken even at this time. I thought oh well, the rain will cool the ground off and I might even get a little chill. I’ll be fine.

1:35

“Was that lightning?” That’s what I said out loud. I thought someone had turned a spotlight on in my tent. I sat up and watched the horizon and did that little thunder to lightning count down. Was it coming towards me? Parallel to me or teasing me. It seemed to run parallel. Then I saw the lightning. I call this type of lightning Jerry Bruckheimer lightning. If you ever watch the beginning of his movies the intro to his brand is this ridiculous lightning strike that goes sideways into a tree. That’s what I saw. Sans tree. There weren’t any. I was the only tree like thing out there. I have a healthy respect for lightning. I’ve been close enough to a lightning strike that it set afire a book of matches sitting on a table next to me. If your hair begins to stand up, get the living fuck out of there.

I saw sideways lighting. Sideways is scarier than poke lightning. If someone comes up to you and starts poking you it’s mildly agitating. If that same person comes towards you and starts swinging their arms side to side then shit steps up to a new level. Same with lightning. Broad swath of fused energy sufficient enough to vaporize your favorite wrist watch and the arm it’s attached to. Coming at you like a colossal whip ready to give a permanent perm.

Once I saw the sideways lightning I decided to relocate into my truck bed. I didn’t drive 16 hours that day to be air fried like a bad chicken wing drum. I pulled my sleeping bag and pillow down from my RTT and pulled my camper tail gate window closed and braced for the ride.

1:45am

Well it started raining. Only slight at first. The wind was drowning out the sound of the rain for a bit but it was no longer a odor it was a reality. Rain is fine, I camp in the rain all the time. It can be a buzzkill at times but in the summer it’s organic air conditioning.

1:47am

Rain decided to get a hard on. It started hailing. Hard, hard hail and it was hitting my truck sideways. Like thousands of air soft BBs pelting the side of my aluminum camper shell. Those plains can push some winds too. Wind can pick up quite the momentum when there is nothing to shield it. It almost rolls downhill in these plains. It was blowing from the west. On the east side of my truck was a cliff 15 feet away that dropped enough for me to think that this might’ve been a bad idea Your sense of just about anything and everything is dulled or exaggerated in the middle of the night. Mine was no exception. Your sense of danger is always elevated when you’re camping in the wild. If it’s not chances are you won’t do it for too long. Mine was spiked. I wasn’t worried about being struck by lightning or flash floods they were physically impossible where I was parked. The wind on the other hand and the fact I had 180lbs of parasail like fiberglass set up to sail on my truck roof makes my truck a little top heavy. Like a sailboat in the ocean during a storm. And she was a rockin.

It would’ve taken a gust of wind the girth of the Wizard of Oz ‘nados to roll my truck but it was coming up 2am, I was half delirious from 16 hours of traveling and was probably at 50% battery life on a gummy edible I had taken before bed to help me sleep. I was present but no one short of a navy seal is present and ready to roll at 2am on a stormy hillside. This was not quite on my agenda of planning. The truck she was a rocking and swaying. I had just enough internet connection on my phone to google static weight equations for RTTs , Tacomas and the needed thickness of welded aluminum steel to survive a cliff roll. Also, I had enough propane, butane and gasol “ane” to blow up half the hillside. Just like what you see cars do when they roll off a cliff in Bruckheimer movies. My anxiety was at a healthy 9.5 out of 10. Close your eyes Chad you’ll be fine. It’s all in your head

1:55am

Did I just hear a moo? I guess the local free range cows all over the hills were still exposed to this hail and thunderstorm. I laid there wondering what cows do during these shitty times of inclement weather. I was about to find out.

1:56am

MOOOOOOOOOO

in all it’s loud clarity and bass erupted right next to my camper window. The last time I had a cow that close to me was in at a Whattaburger drive thru. At first I thought it was a nearby camper fucking with me. It sounded almost too articulated to be real. I grew up surrounded by cows growing up in Piedmont. On 86 I had them across the street for years and on the left hand side of our property. I’m not a city boy. I’m very comfortable around the cows y’all. When they would call out to each other it was usually a uuroooooOoooO! Never heard the m that much but maybe it was because I never had one crooning 8 inches from my head at 2am. This moo was perfect, unadulterated and smooth. It was like the cow was appearing on America’s Got Talent and had been practicing this moo in the mirror for just the right time. It was also piercing. This cow didn’t like the storm about as much as I. And then she brought all of her friends.

2:15

By this time I’m surrounded by cattle. My little abrupt aluminum parasail setting must’ve been ideal for the cattle to weather out the storm. I could still hear my leather friend with her perfect moos but soon she’d be drowned out by the uurooooOOs I so enjoyed as a child living in amongst the cow patty farms of Piedmont. I could also smell the mounds of shit that were amassing outside of my camp. I recorded several minutes of my conversations with these bovines to share with my wife the next day. You can hear me almost laughing at all the absurdity around me but in the back of my voice you can also hear my misery. I was fucking tired. As per the norm exhaustion can get the best of you and your imagination starts to elevate stories in your head. I had thought of setting off my car alarm to chase off the cows. Just a couple of harmless clicks to send them on their way. I wasn’t concerned about my neighbors. No one was asleep in this shit. The wind was blowing my truck off it’s axles. My immediate thought as I clutched my keys were “what if they stampede?” Also did any of those walking hamburger steaks have horns? What if they see my truck as something dangerous as opposed to shelter and turn my camper into Swiss cheese? Or better yet ram my ass into the ravine? Imagination is a hell of a thing y’all. I could hear them pushing up against my truck all stirred up from the storm. My hope for any sleep was done. The only option I had was to wait it out with my new found hooved roommates.

2:30am

I mentioned that Indian taco for a reason. You might’ve forgotten about it, actually I had too until it was ready to make its second appearance. My stomach at this time decided that taco was a terrible idea. Unfortunately for me the front gate had been closed for a while and the only exit available was the back gate. It wasn’t asking permission to leave either. It had already made up its mind the storm, cows, cliff hanging be damned. I literally sat up thinking “oh shit” (no pun intended), grabbed my phone to use its flashlight to find an appropriate receptacle to address the situation. I was loaded for bear not for using my truck camper as an outhouse. Also there is zero ventilation in my truck bed. The allure of sleeping next to a repurposed Indian taco drop off didn’t appeal to me. My only other option was to let it go outside into the growing chaos of the surrounding bovines, hail, Bruckheimer lightning and high winds. Couldn’t be that bad. The fucking cows already had the poop party started. There was no waiting for the storm to dissipate it was go time. Like the soldiers storming the beach of Normandy vessels I burst out of my truck tailgate, pants already down between my ankles and grabbed the same bungee cord I used to hold my back window down to hold onto as left a full moon hanging over my truck bed. I deposited my Indian taco back to the earth it came from faster than you could say Top Gun. The sideways lightning lit up the sky like a flash just in time for me to see the dozens of cows, surrounding my truck bellowing in the storm. It was like a scene from a bad horror movie where maybe the cows all team up turn people into zombie hamburgers. I hopped back into my truck soak and wet and 10lbs lighter. The storm stopped about 4 minutes later.

The cows decided to leave. Not sure if it was the weather or my own impression of a cow patty to mark my territory.

I got about an hour of sleep after that. I didn’t die obviously, my truck didn’t sail into the mystic and I didn’t shit all over myself or become the victim of a stampede. A nice little sunrise greeted me once I got packed up while the cows meandered across the dirt road, staring at the foul idiot that desecrated their abrupt shelter for the evening. Almost mockingly might I add like they were going to post about me and my shitting adventures in their Cowbook pages

Later that day I had some beef jerky and a cheeseburger for lunch. Probably won’t try an Indian taco ever again.