Table of contents for Eighteen: April/May 2020 in ROVA

After college, Beth Johnston knew exactly what she was going to do for the rest of her life. But sometimes plans get derailed—and in some cases, like Beth’s, it’s for the better. Today, Beth is not, like she had planned, a medical professional; she is a successful professional photographer based in Salida, Colorado, living in a 1978 Airstream with her dog, Thyme. When they’re not on the road for a shoot or a project, they’ll often pick a spot in the Collegiate Peaks to call home for a week or more. I caught up with Beth to find out about her Airstream lifestyle. Micah: How did you end up in Salida? Beth: I came to Salida more than 10 years ago to work at a camp for a year before…

Ever since we started full-time RVing in September of 2015, my husband, Tom, and I had always dreamed of making the trek to Alaska in a truck camper. After selling our house, we had moved with our two dogs into a 33-foot fifth wheel that we’d towed all around the Lower 48. What started as a one-to two-year sabbatical from our nine-to-five corporate careers to quench some wanderlust and find our favorite place to settle down turned into our long-term plan of nomadic living, entrepreneurship, and videography. While the fifth wheel worked for slower, more deliberate moves and longer stays in one place, we knew our ideal trek to Alaska would require a different style of travel and therefore a different vehicle for our exploration. With its untouched wilderness, magical…

Squint over the water gently lapping onto fine white sand, over the windswept royal blue waves. Beneath the grassy hillside on the horizon, you might see spindly cottonwood trees sticking out of the water and rows of sunflowers flapping in the breeze. If you were dropped here, you might guess that you were in the Outer Banks of North Carolina or on Oregon’s high-duned Pacific Coast. Maybe a Sardinian grotto. Even if you’d arrived here by road, you might still believe that you’d been somehow transported to one of those heralded locales—until you spotted the F-150s and RVs lined up at the water’s edge like beach umbrellas at a high-end resort. In fact, didn’t you pass not one, not two, but three sad, 10,000-head cattle farms on the way here?…

Offshore winds blow the rain into the back of the Range Rover as it passes along the shoreline. We are not close to the water, yet it feels like I am swimming, like the gravity that affects the tide is pulling me into this moment. The front tire hits a bump, and I’m tossed into the air before crashing back down onto the bench. As the car rocks back and forth with the flow of the road, the view abruptly shifts from blue waves to a towering sea of green mountains piled so high above our rig that I can’t make out where they end. I have no idea where I am going. This is deeply unsettling. Back in the States, four-wheeling and exploring are my life—in fact, I’ve lived…

Winner of the Rumpl Original Puffy Blanket I am a high-school teacher who sits on our school improvement and professional development committee. One of our focuses is how to reach the struggling learner, focusing on those on the autism spectrum. Imagine my excitement when I saw your article “On the Spectrum and on the Road” [ROVA Adventure 17, by Karly Mareka]! Karly’s account, the way that she travels, how she gives her daughters experiences and how her husband is supportive of her wanderlust, is going to be the platform for my professional development presentation. Thank you so much for your wide variety of articles, for always sparking an idea, and for having a presence for the adventurous people. Melissa W “Finding Thoreau at Walden Pond” by Sam Brown [ROVA Adventure…

Missy When I’m asked why I chose this lifestyle, I’m never entirely sure what that answer is. There are probably 1,000 reasons that I decided to buy my home on wheels, but in retrospect it’s that this life chose me. I was always going to end up in my vehicle somewhere near the ocean, in the middle of the desert, or up high in the mountains. It all came naturally. Instagram: @_littleroamer The Proha family We hit the road in 2018, after we sold our 10-acre farm in Spokane, Washington. We wanted to let our kids fully experience all of the history of the US and meet different people from different cultures. This year, we are going up the east coast to learn about the region’s history, and then we’ll…

In 2020, the very notion of “rest” itself is an underserved concept (the enemy of the rest stop, who also happens to be the enemy of truth, love and beauty, is the guy in the car obsessed with making “good time”). The simple act of resting gets very little respect in our profit-obsessed culture, particularly as a matter of architecture or public policy. It speaks of a cataclysmic generational trauma that the smooth sidewalks and simple flower beds of a rest stop could strike me as something so alien and unusual—a completely actualized piece of architecture that is here for all of us, for free. It’s a precious thing, to imagine all the skill and labor poured into a building that is nothing more than a small hut for people…

In the late spring of 2019, I decided to transform my old, worn-down (but still mighty) 1982 Toyota pickup from a skeletal frame into a cottage on wheels. A project of this stature felt far beyond my experience, so I had to ask myself how it would be possible. First, my father has always said that I should find and assess all of the things that a project involves, take it apart, and put it back together. According to him, that approach to life gives you a boundless playing field. Second, architecture was always my passion (I thought it would become my career, but a classroom felt like a prison). To me, the art of building is as simple as a few basic skills and the ability to look at…

The roads that wind through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park follow the old footpaths of America’s indigenous people. Even after 14,000 years, the quickest way to get through the mountains is via one of these walking trails—the one that came to be called “Newfound Gap Road.” The most popular entrance to the park is on this road, in Gatlinburg, with its moonshine distilleries and pancake houses and Space Needle. It’s an Appalachian Vegas Strip, minus the gambling but double the whiskey. The vast majority of the park’s 11 million annual visitors funnel their way in on Newfound Gap Road, stopping only to snap photos of panoramic mountainscapes and strings of cloud wisping up toward the heavens, like God pulling cotton candy from the trees. Most of those visitors climb…

Vans on vans If you’ve been to an RV show, you’ll know the vans make up a pretty small percentage of what’s on display. At the Adventure Van Expo 2020 at Big Bear Lake, California, it’s all about adventure vans. Check out rigs and accessories, indulge in great food and beer, and meet some of the coolest people in the country—die-hard vanlifers. adventurevanexpo.com Band in a Van There are some rigs out there that have amazing sound systems, but the folks over at Van Sessions take it to a whole new level. Musicians who are invited onto the show crowd into a van-turned-studio where they perform their songs for a live audience. Talk about an intimate set! thebanyancollective.com/vansessions It’s raining vodka Sadly, it doesn’t actually rain vodka; in the absence…

Aaron Earl Livingston, aka Son Little, is a rhythm and blues musician with a soulful singing voice who is on the road a lot. He has three albums to his name (the latest being aloha, which was released this past January), and he’s collaborated with many other musicians, including The Roots, RJD2, and Mavis Staples (a collaboration for which he earned a Grammy). I got the chance to chat with Aaron in between gigs, and he shared with me the highs and lows of being a touring musician. Sam Brown: What was it like for you when you first started touring? Son Little: Things happened for me in my career really late. I was 35 when I got signed to a label, and I guess I started touring a couple…

I used to fear road trips; I’d avoid them at all costs. I knew that I was missing out on stunning new scenery and timeless memories, but I still forego travel. It wasn’t the usual fears that plagued me—driving, bears, the unknown—I was worried about whether or not I’d have a gym to sweat at. I was fretting about breakfast: Would it be healthy enough? Would I get enough protein? Would I have to—heaven forbid—miss a workout? That’s right: it was a fear of losing fitness. As someone who spent many years battling disordered eating habits (binge, purge, starve, repeat…) and compulsive exercising, I know how exhausting it feels to spend every waking moment pushing yourself toward a fitness goal and feeling like you’ll never reach it. I know how…

We hadn’t been on the road for very long before spotting a field of Joshua Trees. I stuck my arm out the window and closed my eyes for a moment. The desert was already working its therapeutic magic. There’s an innate sense of freedom on these desolate roads—a feeling I wished I could bottle up and take home to Brooklyn for my daily subway commute. The Mojave Desert is nearly 48,000 square miles, and we were only driving through a fraction of it. With the excuse of a friend’s wedding in San Diego and irresistibly cheap tickets through Vegas, my husband and I tacked on a quick trip to the desert before dragging ourselves back to a frigid east-coast winter. The barren terrain was framed by purple mountains as we…

Books have been written to discuss the many ways that poor bastards have died while exploring and camping around Big Bend National Park. From murder to dehydration, it’s not just the black bears and rattlesnakes that you need to be wary of. Big Bend is where the Wild West still takes up residence. Sitting along the border of Mexico, with the Rio Grande running through it, Big Bend is picturesque and still holds the spirits of the old frontier in its bosom. My cadre of skilled adventurers took the six-hour drive from Austin to Big Bend to test our mettle against the beautiful elements of Southwest Texas. One of us is a veteran of the ruthless terrain (Rich), another is a videographer looking to capture our adventure (Charlie), and then…