Table of contents for Thirty-Two: August/September 2022 in ROVA

Hot days are stretching out into balmy nights, which are best spent outdoors. Adventurous folk like yourselves have likely spent the day driving, exploring, hiking, climbing, swimming, surfing, biking or eating. Or all of the above. It’s a cliche, but one of the best ways to relax as you reflect on your day of being an awesome individual is to grab a cold beer from the cooler (see our cooler round-up on page 48), sink into a camp chair or RV couch, and survey your camp kingdom. Any craft beer aficionado knows that there are too many beers brewed in America to even begin to count them. For this special brewery feature, we’re focusing on beers that are created to suit an outdoor, active lifestyle—some quench a thirst, some help…

It’s no secret that Colorado is filled with a richness of landscapes, ranging from mountain regions and gorges, to canyons and sand dunes. That’s why so many folks visit these diverse landscapes, setting out to tackle a variety of adventurous activities—from swinging into a canyon at 100 miles an hour to sand boarding or sand sledding at a national park. This Colorado loop takes you southwest of Denver, and delivers some amazing experiences. Start and End in Denver Denver is a great place to start your Colorado loop—pull into town and find a scenic mountain campsite, then get to exploring. As the state’s capital, Denver is filled with art, food, culture, and architecture dating back to the 19th century. Start your exploration with a little breakfast. For light smoothie bowls…

Sometimes a road trip is about the journey and not the destination. The drive from Miami to Orlando is not one of those road trips. Taking the quick way up Florida’s Turnpike takes you through hours of low-lying marshland, highlighted by the occasional billboard and signs for Yeehaw Junction. Driving up 1-95 saves you some money on tolls, but doesn’t offer much more in the way of scenery than an abundance of fast-food franchises. But opting for the interstate also takes you along Florida’s Space Coast, best known as home to NASA and America’s manned space program. While the destination isn’t frequented for much other than gas and the occasional shuttle launch, perusing the region’s beaches, restaurants, and waterside bars will have you seeing the Miami to Orlando drive in…

Spice Up Your Life! Connoisseurs of hot sauce, unite! Get your Scoville on with Fartley Farms’ gourmet, smallbatch hot sauces. With a plethora of flavor-infused spicy sauces on offer, the opportunities are endless. Whether you’re a pro chef or simply need to mask your culinary disasters with some pizzazz, Fartley Farms has got your back. The hot sauces are made locally in Ohio, and are perfect to pepper up your palate, with flavors ranging from Serrano Garlic and Cranberry Habanero, to Three Pepper Curry and Scorpion Garlic… Is it hot in here, or is it just us? fartleyfarms.com A Sonic Summer Send-off Soak up the last warm waves of summer with Toro y Moi’s 7th LP, Mahal. The South Carolina native turned California local and master musician has delivered another…

Before I had my Scamp trailer, road trips were about making miles—quickly. The odd-numbered interstates took me north and south to see family, and even-numbered ones west and east to fish. Now that I tow my home with me, I get off the expressways, taking detours to places that I am glad I did not miss. A few of my favorites follow. Lynch, Kentucky Returning home from fishing in the Smoky Mountains, I opted for a route of two-lane highways through the Appalachians. Without camping reservations, I arrived in Harlan, Kentucky, at nightfall and found that nothing was available. A gas station attendant thought there might be a campground about 30 miles further on, near a defunct coal mine. I found the place—half a dozen empty spots, no one else…

Van life has a spirit of the migratory to it; that urge to keep moving for the change of seasons, better weather, and better conditions at the next stop. Did you know that many wild birds share this same drive to make a change every season? Looks like you already have a bunch in common with our feathered friends, so perhaps you could incorporate bird-watching into your visual and auditory experience of four-wheeled travel? “Tell yourself, ‘Im going to start birding!”’ says Eliana Ardila Kramer, a van-lifer and co-owner of the bird guiding company Birding By Bus. Fellow birders Emilie Chen in Oregon, Brian Chitundu in New Jersey, and Melissa Hafting in British Columbia, Canada, share Ardila Kramer’s enthusiasm for birding on the road, and offer their tips for making…

No matter the time of year, coolers are an essential part of life on the road. Fishing enthusiasts keep their catch fresh during trips to the lake, and summer beach bums can keep their popsicles from melting on the hot sand—no matter your predicament, place or preference, everyone needs a cooler to keep their food and drink cool as a cucumber. Whether it’s the swelter of the sweatinducing July sun, or the bone-chilling January ice breeze—who doesn’t love to crack open a nice cold beer? While there’s a plethora of options (and shapes) out there to suit every need, nook and cranny, choosing the right cooler can be overwhelming. Thankfully, we’ve got you covered with some of the best options currently on the market. Igloo's Retro Picnic Basket If you’re…

Stunning landscapes. Endless opportunities for outdoor recreation. Utah is everything you could want in a road-trip destination. I’m a full-time photographer, wife, and mother of three. When my oldest child finished eighth grade, we decided to ditch our yearly extended family beach vacation and hit the road. With a limited number of family vacations remaining before she was grown, we wanted to show our kids as many new places as we could—and experience the excitement with them. We packed up our Yukon and headed west in hopes of seeing as many cool sights as we could in the 11 days we had. During that trip, we traveled 5,200 miles through 15 states, visited seven national parks, and sparked a love of travel in each of us that has only grown…

When I was seven or eight, my best friend invited me to go on a camping trip. His dad had just gotten a truck camper and was excited to try it out. It was a Cascade in all its ’70s glory: offwhite exterior with “wood” stripes, wood-paneled interior, dark floral print on the dinette cushions, and the quintessential avocado-green stove. Though it could sleep four, my friend’s dad made us set up a tent outside. He assumed—correctly, as it turned out—that two seven-year-olds would stay up late into the night chattering excitedly about Star Wars. (As someone who saw the first-run original print in a theater, I can assure you that Han shot first.) Online RV forums are filled with people discussing the relative merits of fifth-wheels versus toy haulers,…

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment we lost faith. The whole journey plays back like some swashbuckling adventure in a long-lost pirate’s tale. Our ship, the mid-modern equivalent of a “living room on wheels,” had gotten ofF to a shaky start when the ceiling vent hit the shag carpet with a thump at the 30-mile mark. Only 1,900 miles to go. At that point, we looked at each other and lied to ourselves, uttering, “We got this.” My wife and I were novice big-rig drivers. We had struck out from the suburbs of Saint Paul, Minnesota, piloting an RV that had inspired a comical piece of movie history known as the “EM50 Urban Assault Vehicle”—a fictional, armored fort on wheels from the movie Stripes. This unlikely vehicle was based…

As youths, we are sponges observing our parental units with eyes wide while foundational roots dig in, whether we know it or not. It might take stepping back and observing our patterns in adulthood, then tracing them back before we can even begin to understand what our progenitors instilled. Thus, the titular apple usually does what the laws of the universe say: it falls from the tree, and as the usual saying claims, not all that far from it (depending on grade and weather conditions). I, for one, am a prime example of this: my father made his living as a photographer, graphic designer, and sometimes filmmaker. He ended up passing away when I was 18, and he wasn’t able to see me prove the cliche as I ended up…

Of all the people in the campground at Jalama Beach County Park, I alone saw the UFOs. Quite literally, I could not believe my eyes. But there they were, soaring across the starry sky, alien, and unlike anything I’d ever seen. Meanwhile, the other campers went about their nightly rituals: washing dishes by spigot, burning marshmallows over firepits, brushing teeth at the communal bathroom, and belly-laughing over beer-drenched tales. My neighbors, Doug and Sheryl, retirement-aged Airstreamers whose marriage squabbles had woken me that morning, were sitting at their campfire and reading books by headlamp. I wanted to tell Doug and Sheryl— to tell anyone, really—about what I was seeing, but my anxiety was getting the better of me. Ironically, my camping trip was meant to alleviate stress. Leaving my wife…

It would be fair to say that, coming from New York City, I’m lacking in experience behind the wheel. It might be fairer to say that, having been a serial expat, I’ve actually taken more road trips at legal driving age in Mexico—and one very dicey jaunt in Saudi Arabia— than I have in the United States. In fact, before this ride, the only time I ever rented a car was in 2016, to see the Salton Sea and Slab City in California; this was after having not driven (save for a few bumper cars) for about 13 years. How could anyone follow up such a memorable drive through Slab City, aka the last free place in America? With barbecue, and the country’s most underrated state for architecture, of course.…