The Big One Begins! "Lurch forth!" for real this time

...and our first day out is a sweet start

Approximately eight months after we were singed by the Lukens Lake fire in Yosemite, Mike and I were finally ready to hit the road for the extended trip we’d been calling The Big One. 

We rented our house out to a nice couple building their home in our area, and planned to travel in the trailer for the next four to six months, criss-crossing the entire United States from coast to coast. 

It was an ambitious plan, but as Mike said: “if not now, when?”

Our original Big One route map *gulp* thats a lotta miles

Packing up and leaving the house involved a new level of cleaning and sorting as short term renters were coming in and using everything, including our linens and kitchen items. Our personal things had to be packed, moved to storage, and locked up. 

Additionally, long term type things had to be done to the trailer. We bought a wi-fi booster system with an antenna so I could monitor my business from the road. We got a postal forwarding service set up to deal with our mail. We alerted our neighbors to the situation and arranged for them to be available should the renters have problems. We set up a workstation with stamps, a printer, and other supplies stored in a plastic shelving unit in the dinette so I could pay bills and such. 

We redid all the food, condiments, and cookware, stocking the rig’s kitchen to live out of and not just vacation this time. Extra linens and clothing for all situations and seasons now tightly packed our little 3 foot by 18 inch closets. Shoes for all kinds of situations now occupied some of that space, too. On Mike’s side, extra fishing gear. On mine, an emotional security stack of “to be read” books.

And as always, that last push to complete all domestic chores and get out of the house and on the road was exhausting and took longer than we’d anticipated. 

“We should plan for how tiring departure is on a long trip,” I told Mike as we finally pulled out of the RV storage place: gas and propane topped up, batteries charged, water storage full, black and gray tanks empty.

“Good thing I did plan for that, and we’re only going as far as Sacramento today,” Mike said. 

“Good job, honey!”

Tired and frazzled as we were, it was a triumphant moment, and we shared it with a high five. 

We’d done it: gone from a dream to leaving on The Big One. This moment had taken years and many trial-and-error stages to reach. But here we finally were, towing our tiny home on wheels onto the 101, everything we owned left behind as we merged into traffic and headed out, return date uncertain.

With all that going on, I had low expectations of a park that Mike had picked out online as merely a place to crash on that first challenging departure day.

The campground near the Sacramento River was practically deserted when we arrived near dusk.We were the only campers in an empty, spacious site area. As I got out of the SUV’s cab, I tipped back my head and looked up at interlaced branches high above, black tracery on a luminous evening sky.

“Ohh,” I breathed, closing my eyes and taking in balmy air sweet with the smell of cotton candy. 

This was a scent I remembered from our last major road trip to the Southwest documented in Open Road; the unlikely and wonderful aroma of blooming cottonwood trees flavored the air from somewhere nearby.

Birds twittered far above in the vast, ancient river oaks, a variety that grows tremendously tall along the Sacramento River, and never cut in some rare places.

We’d seen firsthand the impact these rugged giants could have when they lost a limb; a branch the size of a whole tree fell into the campsite beside us on one of our weekend forays, shaking the earth and obliterating the (fortunately unoccupied) spot.

But tonight, parking under a pair of the oaks with their massive arms lifted high was like entering the grandest cathedral. Behind the silhouetted branches and greening leaves, the purples, reds, and golds of a sunset shone through God’s stained-glass windows.

“Let’s take a bike ride!” I exclaimed. “While there’s still a little light left.”

Mike handed me my helmet from the back of the truck. “Already on it.”

A couple of inexpensive, nubby-tired electric bikes was an investment we’d made specifically for this trip, hoping to expand our ability to explore the parks. The bikes’ battery assist power silently enhanced pedaling, and riding them created a sensation akin to flying that we both loved. We could ride on sand, gravel, and trails without much worry except that of wiping out. 

We unloaded the e-bikes from their parking place wedged inside the trailer, an elaborate process involving old settee cushions and a couple of crude wooden stanchions Mike had built to hold them in place as we drove. 

I strapped Koa into the dog carrier Mike had bought for him, a contraption much like a baby carrier but with holes for his legs and tail. Koa, the world’s most submissive dog, went limp and allowed me to squash and manipulate him into the front pack. 

He really just wants to be with me that much.

Moments later, helmets and visibility vests on, we whizzed through candy-scented dusk on a smooth, empty, curving road through the park. We swooped effortlessly through a dim evening light filled with birdsong and darting bats intent on feeding on the many insects. (The speed of the bikes made me glad I was wearing my glasses and careful to keep my mouth shut.)

Even so, I couldn’t help letting out an occasional whoop of exhilaration as approaching night flowed around us warm, friendly and fecund. 

We reached a natural end of the road, turning at a curve in the mighty Sacramento River, and parked the bikes to go down to the edge of the bank. I let Koa out of his carrier so he could sniff around.

The water’s surface was cleft by small hillocks of vegetation, boulders, logs and snags of broken branches. This part of the huge river was a hazardous expanse this time of the year. Bats zigzagged at unbelievable speeds, chasing prey over the glittering water. The first stars poked holes in an indigo sky above us. 

I studied the eddies and currents, looking for a smooth, deep area. “We could swim there.” I pointed.

Mike raised a tufted silver brow. “Moving pretty fast.”

I shrugged. “If it was any hotter than this, I’d be going in.”

“That’s my girl,” he said, approving.

Darkness had fully fallen when we got back onto the bikes to return to camp. The birds had gone to sleep, yielding the sound stage to a chorus of crickets and frogs. 

We didn’t have lights on the bikes, nor was the road illuminated, so the ride back to camp was a breathless hurtle through space rendered in a range of shadows. 

Midges and gnats had gathered in clouds around the light pouring from the windows of our trailer; the moment we opened the door, the tiny bugs gushed inside, swarming around the LED dome lights inside the camper.

In a comedy of sorts, we tried to shoo the pests out (that just let in more) swat them (they were too small and agile to hit) and douse them with mosquito spray (which had no effect.) 

Finally we decided the best solution was to get ready for bed and turn out all the lights but one. Then Mike, clad only in his bedtime boxers, wielded a small shop vacuum around. He spent a good forty-five minutes sucking up gnats like a tall, silver-haired Ghostbuster, then taking the vacuum outside to set them free. Once the gnats were expelled, we slept well.

The next morning, we woke to sunshine, birdsong and perfect temperatures. Before departing on what was to be a long drive day, we rode our bikes on the local county road to explore a different park. 

I’m sure we were a sight to see, me with my strapped-on dog and Mike with our fishing poles bobbing behind, both of us in helmets with flashing lights on top and hideous yellow visibility vests. Cool we were not, but the bikes went up to twenty miles an hour, and we’d been warned accidents on them could be serious.

Swallows were nesting by the hundreds under the bridge above stony shores that fronted a small tributary river at this new park. I got off my bike, let down my kickstand, lowered Koa out of the pack to explore. I rigged up my fishing pole as Mike worked his way along the rocky bank, casting.

I tossed a lure into the river, but really I was just watching the swallows. Busy as bees working a hive and just as uninterested in us, they fetched wet earth from the riverbank to shore up their elaborate condominium nests. They swooped and dove, black winged shapes that shone purple and midnight blue in the sunlight. They built, and they nested, and they fed their cheeping young in elaborate patterns.

Their darting was too swift to track, a dance of survival.

Note the nests up on the strut. The birds were moving too fast to photograph

For all the effort, hassles, expense, worries, broken things, arguments, and stress, we had freed ourselves from the relentless human survival dance.

It was no small thing we’d done, departing the rat race and going in a different direction entirely. 

And now, we stood in the shadow of the bridge beside an unknown river, watching the patterns of swallows. Freedom smelled a lot like cottonwood trees in bloom.

P.S. If this resonated with you, hit the little ❤️ and let me know. Share this post with a friend who might have dreamed of a long road trip, too…