Southwest AdVANtures: Days 1 - 2

My boyfriend, Frank, and I just recently had the adventure of a lifetime, something we'd both only dreamt of until this point. We spent an entire month living in our converted Ford Transit Connect, traveling around the country, sleeping on public lands and in national forests, and exploring the American Southwest. I documented as much as I could in real-time, but later had to add photos and make tweaks, which made the whole thing quite a massive document. I've broken down these reflections into smaller sections which I'll be sharing here, with up to a few days' entries per post. I hope you enjoy these recollections of our adVANtures, and remember, we all have the power to discover beauty and magic every day. Sometimes, the scale is not as big, but it's up to us to feel the wonder anyway.

Day 1, Saturday, February 26th

This was it, our long-awaited departure date. Big events don’t really sink in for me until they’re about to happen, so the whole idea that we were leaving home for a month to travel around the country finally hit; it hit me hard. To soften the nerves and get our bodies moving, we decided to start the day with yoga at our home studio, More Than a Mat. This was a good call, for day one was going to be all about driving and covering lots of ground. We were eager to get down to those new-to-us, unchartered southern territories. We did our yoga, followed by our final packing and organizing, then said our goodbyes to the kitty boys (and again… oh, and one more time).

Finally, it was time to leave. I did a little blessing over our van like my grandma used to do before our family road trips. Frank read a prayer he authored, and it was beautiful and made me cry; that, combined with the whole “leaving the kitty boys and home and everything familiar for a month” thing, but it was all good. We needed to leave the familiar. Sometimes the familiar feels so safe, but not so… alive.

Day one included lots of driving, but our stopping point changed from the original plan. Our first thought had been to drive to Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri. Instead, we decided to keep it direct, skipping any long stays until we got further south. We drove from around 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., then found a Planet Fitness in Indiana where we got in a little movement, a shower, and a quick bite to eat. After that, we drove another few hours, until exhausted, rolled into a Walmart parking lot in Rolla, Missouri. It was there we slept for the night, our mission to cover ground successful.

Sleeping Spot: Walmart, Rolla, Missouri (PROs - no one bothered us, it was easy / CONs - obviously not a "real" campsite, but fine for this leg of the trip)

Day 2, Sunday, February 27th

The next day, we woke up, promptly found a coffee shop for our caffeine fix, then headed back on the road. Our plan was to drive to Arkansas and stop somewhere for the night, but after revisiting the iOverlander camping app, I discovered a spot in Tishomingo, Oklahoma that looked promising. This spot, the Blue River Fishing and Hunting Area, was rated by one of the app users as “the best free camping spot in Oklahoma”. I believe the claim now, but more on that later. With the new coordinates plugged in, it’d be another long traveling day, but we were ready. We drove deeper into beautiful Missouri, that place where the Midwest so gracefully shakes hands with the South.

We kept seeing signs for a place called Fantastic Caverns. Frank lightheartedly asked, “Should we go?” which I first dismissed but then started to ponder. I looked it up online and the pictures and reviews looked amazing. It’s the only drive-through cave tour in the country, and the caves are vast and expansive, with beautiful formations of different shapes and sizes. We decided to go for it, be spontaneous and adventurous! We weren’t going to be slaves to some arbitrary agenda. Why should we? While I had some anxieties about being crammed into a small space, in a small vehicle, with a bunch of other people, I still felt excited over facing that fear and seeing something beautiful. Frank cheered me on, as did my older brother, via text, who gave me this advice, “Clear your mind, or what I call ‘taking a recess of the shitty committee’.” I like that.

The caves were amazing. Frank bought an amethyst crystal from the gift shop, which we read apparently has properties meant to stave off alcoholism and encourage sobriety. I’ve also heard it’s tied to themes of water, flow, and the astrological sign of Pisces (which we were in the midst of). In the cavern, our guide did this thing they did when I went to Mammoth Caves a few years back. They turn off the lights for a moment and allow you to see the most ultimate darkness you’ve never seen. You can’t see anyone, anything, anywhere, anywhen, just encompassing, universal, embryonic darkness. It comforted me, and I think Frank too. The coolest part, in my opinion, was when our guide told us about the original entrants to the cave, a group of 12 teenaged girl cave explorers, who made their entry and wrote their names on the wall on none other than February 27th, 1867 (the same date we were there)! What were the odds of that!? Well, I calculated it, and they were one in 365, which weirdly ends up with another “27”, at 0.27 percent.

After the tour, we took a stroll around the grounds, following signs indicating “The Great Missouri Birding Trail”. Truthfully, it didn’t seem all that great, but it was a trail, and we enjoyed it. We found a little table in a corner in the sun and did a short meditation there. 

Then, it was back on road for the rest of the day. The rocky, hilly, lush lands of Missouri quickly changed upon entering Oklahoma. This state was much flatter, browner, and dustier. The whole vibe of Oklahoma was slightly forlorn and abandoned. There were smatterings of few-block towns with boarded-up businesses interspersed with gas stations and medical marijuana dispensaries. At least the abundance of cows and hawks along the roadsides and fields gave a sense of life to the land. Around 7:30 p.m., we arrived at the Blue River area in Oklahoma, though to me it felt much later. We couldn’t see all the details of the land, but we could hear a roaring river and found some really cool dispersed camping sites. In case you’re unfamiliar, dispersed camping isn’t camping in a campground with toilets, running water, or other amenities; it’s parking on National Forest or other public land. It’s free of charge, typically pretty private, and perfectly legal, as long as you follow parameters like not being too close to actual campgrounds or parks. This is the type of camping we would do for our entire trip.

Tonight, we settled on Designated Campsite 4, which sat along that rapid river, tucked under the shade of mixed deciduous and conifer trees. We set up camp, made a fire, sat in our new Stargazer chairs to... well, gaze at the stars, then went to sleep.

Sleeping Spot: Blue River Fishing & Hunting Area, Tishomingo, Oklahoma