Our journey was certainly not about the destination, but about how we chose to spend each mile we traversed, and how we avoided running out of gas multiple times.3. We learned that adventure lies at every corner of the world, under every small rock alongside unbeaten paths. The "unconventional" is only so because most people don't stretch beyond their comfort zones. We learned that there's often crafty ways to solve stubborn problems.
This rather comical trip did teach us important things. Our final memorable destination was the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, a unique divide that separates Eastern and Western United States. Over a thousand miles of driving later through mountain ranges, forests, deserts, towns tiny and big, gas low and full, campgrounds legal and illegal, we made it into Colorado. The 15' truck offered plenty of first-class sleeping quarters in the back. They are known to post helpful road signs for the curious traveler.įor that night, and most nights on this trip, we discovered the convenience of essentially having a mobile home. We almost got lost between these sandy peaks, but the fun we had swimming through the soft terrain wouldn't have made that so bad.īut if you do get lost, there's a few military bases surrounding the National Park that can help guide the way. If you think you know where you are, you probably don't. We set sail for the natural wonders of White Sands National Park, and the less-than-natural military bases that encircle the park.Īdvice for travelers: the endless rolling sand dunes are deceptively repetitive. We had brunch at a McDonalds shaped like a saucer. Our first destination and our stay for the first night was at a campsite just outside of where those from planet Xiashiavenith landed. Give a few college boys keys to a truck-trailer, and where do they go? Roswell - we really wanted to find the aliens. Fate had the odds in our favor, and we got the keys an hour later. Probably the youngest customers at the rental desk, we saw the hesitation in the representatives eyes as she calculated the likelihood that these three nomadic 20-year-olds would return their truck in one piece. Luckily, there were U-Haul rental sites near our car's death bed. Bootstrapping hustlers we are, why don't we do that ourselves and avoid the equity dilution? So we put our management-consulting-striving-cost-cutting-analyzing brains together and realized that the blunt of the cost was having a service transport our car from TX to CO (over 1,000 miles!). But this kills the adventure we had planned and shipping a car isn't cheap.
Our only other option was to fly home and ship the car back (jetBlue wouldn't let us count the SUV as extra check-in luggage). The car's had trouble before, but I guess after it saw the ludicrous GPS route we plotted, it decided to cash in on its PTO. Why the U-Haul? Our car, the trusted 2014 Subaru Outback (yes, the one we traversed the Continental Divide in) died two hours into this trip. But we got our hands on a cool 15' U-Haul truck with our car in tow, so why not live it up and explore the corners of Southwest America at a generous 12 MPG? It wasn't the most direct path by any means. I plotted for you what our route roughly looked like. This was part of a mini road trip my friends and I took from Padre Island, TX to Denver, CO. And if you're the average Joe who doesn't carry explosives for leisure, they'll let you through fine! This is a proven technique, and you just saved extra commute by short-cutting through this remote research site hidden in the New Mexico Jemez Mountains range. The trick is to put on an innocent, lost face and politely ask them to search through your truck. Shucks, because the way back is 50 miles of winding mountainous roads. Travel advice: if you found yourself in a U-Haul driving through the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico - home of the Manhattan Project - the military officer at the gate will tell you to turn around.
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