Leaving Yosemite for the Central Valley, one downhill road in particular was so steep, I thought I might accidentally drive off a cliff. It dropped down nearly 3,000 feet in a mile and a half. I couldn’t brake any harder, and the van in front of me was going so slow (rightfully), I thought I might slide into it.
Once down closer to sea level, it was hot. I’d driven three hours west until I gained phone service again and got in touch with my mother’s friend, only to learn that she had a backache and said it wasn't a good day to meet. I changed plans to having no plan.
Mercury Retrograde was in its final hour, and, needless to say, I was feeling its wrath. Ever since I left the coast and headed through Bakersfield (the Hagerstown of California) toward the Sierra Nevadas, I’d felt off. Energetically. I was off the wave. And I didn’t know how to get back on. Nothing seemed to be clicking. And the angrier I got about it, the further off the wave I became.
I headed toward Sonoma Valley anyway, because I’d planned a stop after it, and, frankly, I didn’t know where I was going, so anywhere would do. A friend back home listened to me vent and did the additional kindness of looking up parks en route, where I could camp. He found one called Brannan Island State Recreation Area that sounded feasible, so I headed there. It was a little expensive (California) and not particularly beautiful (the swimming area left a lot to be desired) but was perfect for my needs.
I set up the big tent I’d bought in North Carolina for the first time that night. I'd had no reason to set it up prior to that, or even then. I’d been using a $20 Walmart tent that I’d bought in a pinch on the way to a camping trip a few years back, a backup tent. It was just so easy and fast to set up. And I kept arriving at campsites at dusk, wanting something fast.
I wasn’t real excited by the big new tent, turns out. After living in my tiny, cozy one for weeks, it felt too spacious, like moving from a studio apartment to a mansion. What do you do with all that extra room?
The next morning, there were lush green mountains to my left and sandy mountains to my right, as I drove north through Napa Valley—which really does look IRL as it does in all the movies: a little ritzy, a little too shiny for my taste but fascinating.
Everything was greener in Napa Valley.
The air smelled like grapes.
I stopped in a small town there but felt so out of place, I didn’t even get out of my car, just turned around and got right back on the highway.
So many vineyards, one after the next. I began to wonder if they’d ever end. Just when I thought they were over—more vineyards. I finally got it, why Napa is world-renowned as wine country. People drank wine in lawn chairs underneath the shade of a tree in one orchard. At a fancy brick vineyard building covered in ivy, people went in and out, carrying wine glasses.
I wasn’t there for the wine, just camping. I made a right on Zinfandel Lane and crossed Napa River, finding camping at Napa Valley State Park, if barely (only a couple sites available when I arrived). I made camp and made myself at home, and then I had a little bit of a freakout moment.
There have only been three instances on the road when I’ve had such a moment.
One came after a stressful few days at the ocean with family, when I officially set out west and had the flashing thought, “I’m really doing it now.” The first six weeks or so in Asheville and at Outer Banks was certainly an adjustment to living out of my car, but I was among friends and family and friends who feel like family. I was in familiar places—places I’d lived or visited numerous times over the years. To start heading west, that felt different. That was heading into the unknown alone, casting aside all familiarity. When I met a friend in North Carolina to road-trip together for a weekend before heading west, I was a mess. Thankfully, he’s a special soul who set me straight and eased my mind, and I left those Smoky Mountains feeling solid again.
The second freakout came after exploring the rolling hills of Hot Springs, Arkansas, and catapulting into Texas on I-30 through Texarkana. I’ve never been anywhere that felt so foreign and yet so distinctly American. I arrived on the Fourth of July. Feeling overwhelmed and having a borderline panic attack, I got a room at a Super 8 pretty quickly and shut myself away behind its walls, as if I could imagine myself being anywhere once inside the homogenized interior of a motel chain.
The third moment was unexpected. I was nestled in my tent at Napa Valley State Park and turned open an Edward Abbey book I’d picked up in Joshua Tree. I’d planned to give it to my friend Scott, who loves Ed Abbey and read passages to me one night at his house when my car broke down and I was waiting on AAA. I knew I’d end up dipping into it before passing it on to him, and as I was reading, I kept thinking of him. So I wrote a quick email, asking if he had the specific book I’d bought, telling him where I was camping, and signing it, “Miss you, love you, think of you often.”
When I hit send, I imagined him receiving it at his home along the Potomac River in Maryland. I imagined him cheering me on, free spirit that he is, “She’s doing it!” And then I thought of all the people back East who have been my cheerleaders, who I've somehow inspired, all the people who have told me they’re living vicariously through me, and suddenly it hit me, as if seeing myself from outside myself: it’s ME they’re talking about, me here in my tent in Napa Valley.
The “what am I doing out here?” thoughts immediately flooded in. I am the inspiration? Me?! I got laid off 10 months after I started what I thought was gonna be the next big era of my life; I have a chronic illness that flares up around mold, making signing a lease in the Mid-Atlantic akin to playing a game of Russian roulette; living in a tent was my best option.
It made me wonder about the people who are role models and inspirations to the masses, how it actually feels to be inside their bodies day to day.
It made me realize reality is fragile. My perspective can shift in the blink of an eye. One thought—from myself or another—has the ability to flip the switch and shift my perspective instantly and dramatically. I wish it weren’t this way. I suspect that enlightened beings do not experience this. But I am no buddha. Just a girl who’s trying something different for a little while.