Years ago, my husband and I wanted to get away for a couple weeks. We both needed a vacation and one that didn’t encompass a visit to distant relatives masked as a “vacation.” While those are lovely and we did our fair share, those particular kinds of vacations are riddled with deadlines and commitments. You need a vacation to recover from the vacation. 

With our children grown and on their own, I suggested we look to go to a place we had never been before and somewhere we could include our dogs.

I suggested a road trip.

We looked at one another and my husband said, “Let’s head West little Lady.”

And so we did.

With very little planning, just a road map and a general idea of what we wanted to see over the next two weeks, we loaded our Jeep and headed West with three of our four dogs.

We did not make hotel reservations or have a destination in mind. We planned each day as it was happening.

While a pretty significant snowstorm clipped us as we headed out of New York on Friday, the 13th of April, the weather gods were with us and the 5,200-mile road trip turned out to be one of the best times in our lives. We found ourselves in love again. In love with life and in love with one another.

We knew certain hotel chains were pet-friendly and used our cell phones to look ahead at our options each afternoon. We stopped often, took side roads and let the days take on a breezy, carefree atmosphere.

When we were a few days into the trip, I realized we had not played the radio a single time in those four days. Whether we chatted about the local landscape, people we met, or our own lives, there was no need for the distraction, and it remained that way for the next 10 days.

When we arrived in Moab, Utah, we were hooked – a Jeep loving haven of trails, history and a spirituality embedded in the landscape – and we decided to stay there for a week before heading back East.

The memories of those days still bring me joy.

I remember when we would head out on a local trail in the early morning light, dawn’s sun peeking over the canyon walls in shades of red and pink. We would have a cooler full of sandwiches, snacks and water and not return to the hotel until dusk’s shadow had fallen across the landscape.

We witnessed the West in ways many do not get to experience.

There was the time our Border Collie, Abel, bailed from the back of the Jeep to herd an enormous jackrabbit, his paws tearing through the protected landscape in his pursuit and our frantic pleas for him to stop before a ranger saw the unlawful infraction; the battle of two eagles, talons locked, as they fell to the earth and I naively instructed my husband to go check on the one still grounded - it was fine - and we watched in awe as it rose from the ground on a six-foot wingspan, gracefully gliding in front of us before dipping down into the canyon towards the Green River hundreds of feet below; and we explored switchbacks, one notably near Dead Horse Canyon - named for a reason - and a wind storm over took us and covered everything in a blanket of desert dust as we desperately tried to put the top up to protect the pups. We saw petroglyphs etched in stone walls, rode past crushed vehicles at the bottom of trails and traveled in canyons formed by glaciers hundreds of thousands of years ago, while staying acutely aware of potential rainstorms that could produce deadly flash floods. 

We laughed at the absurdity of cows freely roaming the streets of towns in Indian reservations, felt sadness at the poverty of Native Americans forced to curtail their culture and lives, and marveled at the landscape our forefathers rode across to reach the Pacific. The West is truly humbling.

There is something to be said about the spontaneity of a road trip with only a direction in mind. While I am convinced that the nomad lifestyle is embedded in my soul, I am not sure it was in my husband’s. But, looking back, he always indulged in my wanderlust with love.  I didn’t recognize then what I realize now. I was and still am, so blessed.

I absolutely love heading out without a definitive plan because it frees me from deadlines. I don’t have an agenda that says I have to drive a certain number of miles and arrive at a destination by a particular time. It frees me to explore more back roads, stop more often in places that appeal to me and linger a little longer when the beauty of this country stops me in my tracks. For me, those types of road trips heal me. There is a peace I can find nowhere else.

I need another road trip.