Seven days between California and South Dakota

July 5th, 2025

It’s late in the afternoon and I am looking over the rim of the Badlands of South Dakota.

The camper is parked facing east. I have the dutch door open and my chair is rested atop the opened tailgate so that it is like I have my own little porch to sit upon. An arm’s reach away, Cowboy sleeps on the bed inside the camper behind me. All the windows are open; a cross-breeze blows us cool.

We are on day five of this seven-day adventure—a road trip from Los Angeles to Pine Ridge, South Dakota—with overnight stops in Utah and Colorado, and we have also passed through the states of Arizona, Wyoming, and briefly, Nebraska; all of which will be passed again when we are homeward bound.

I have had little time to write up until now, but with so many hours behind the wheel I have had plenty of time to think about what this trip means to me. The main theme, I have decided, has been one of intuition and gut instinct.

I left home due to an urge, a much needed reset and return to the road after an absence too long. On the first of July, we packed the truck and began driving with only an end point in mind, thus surrendering said mind in favor of the gut, allowing our instinct to become the guiding compass for finding the stops in-between. It’s a good way to travel, this way: to wake up and wonder where you will sleep that night. I realize also that it’s a luxury, to be sure, to have such wonders without worry. In the morning you can plan on a rough destination for the evening—say, make it a goal to drive from Utah to Colorado. How far you get into the Rockies will depend on the day, and the day is where the adventure lies. You might be driving for several hours when you suddenly spot something off the road—a winding river, for example, that appears to be a good reading spot—or, you might notice a gas station carved into the rockface of a mountain. The point is: anything can happen. And when your travels are guided by instinct, whatever happens is simply what needs to be.

Road break on the Fremont River in Colorado

The last road trip I made of this distance was three years ago, which was also to Pine Ridge; and before that, it had been another three years, although that trip followed along a different route but had some overlap in the western half of Colorado.

The three years in-between trips was not a conscious plan, but after some thought I now believe the interval to be a good one and already have I begun to fantasize about the next adventure which will happen in another three years time, perhaps to a distance further east and during the season of fall so that we may experience shorter days amongst the turning of leaves, watching the reds and yellows fall as the summer of youth then comes to an end. For in three years I will be going on thirty-five.

But let me return and say a thing for this trip now: it is something beautiful and dimensional—this country of ours. And I do mean truly beautiful. To drive across the vast, open horizon of this nation, one can only admire the topographical variety of this Earth and its peoples who live upon it. What a gift it is to cross borders so freely; to experience the sum of its parts as nature intended.

In the city back home, it seems our folly lies in the air which holds a regrettable and polluted assumption that the vocal peoples operating in the world of business, wealth, and fame are indicative of this country as a whole—that by their “educated” opinions, these voices imply themselves to be our representatives, though often unchosen. In Los Angeles, we turn on the news and our team has won the world series; there are rightful protests that began downtown in June which are still on-going; and both of these events—to use as examples—become national news, while I am able to see them for myself in person just a short metro ride away. It is this representation through media that allows one to see how, without travel, bubbles of thought emerge in places like the city.

Yet, on this trip, I have instead been reminded of an America that once flavored my youth and perhaps continues to flavor the daydreams of my adulthood.

In Richfield, Utah, I trolled suburban streets lined with brick houses and grass yards littered with bicycles, scooters, and skateboards of children, and what stood out to me the most was that none of these belongings were locked in chains or hidden behind head-high fences.

On a two-lane highway in Nebraska, I returned a friendly wave to a man driving a tractor next to open fields of wheat crops. In the fields behind him there laid hay bales wrapped to look like the American flag.

I have driven past billboard advertisements stating that all families should carry Naxolone to prevent fentanyl overdoses and deaths of their loved ones.

I have slept above the fine, red powder dirt of Utah—dirt that looks like Mars—and I have slept in the driveway of a home on Pine Ridge Reservation, watching, listening to, and feeling the intense pounding of hail and rain on our little, cedar wood camper.

My end goal for this trip, destination-wise, was to be on the reservation for the Fourth of July. I would not claim to know anything about the lives of people in such a place, but I imagine this area to be one of the places in this country where its citizens would have more of a right than anyone to protest our country’s flag; yet, before the hail fell, I witnessed the greatest display of fireworks I’ve ever seen, lasting well until the early hours of the morning. Whether or not this was for-or-against our flag, there was nonetheless a strong gathering of community.

A few days ago, when I passed through Crested Butte, Colorado, I spotted mega-mansions dotting the hillsides like ugly sores, which I assume were the second or third homes of billionaire ski-lovers, and in this same state of the great Rocky mountains, I also passed trailer homes sitting on plots of land, surrounded by the carcasses of rusting automobiles and half-fallen structures from past generations, the appearances of which—both in style and building materials—seemed to date back to the time of the homesteaders and westward expansion through manifest destiny.

I have seen a snapshot of the American West along these miles of the road; a brief reminder of so many things to be found—but what I have yet to see is confirmation that my assumptions about these immense and interwoven United States are correct.

America is a country of scale. Walks of life range from the foothills to the peaks of the mountains, and in each place, each geography, there are all types people. All Americans. Folks who likely want the same things as me: a family, a home, a community.

Cowboy and I spent all of yesterday driving the long and final stretch from Colorado to South Dakota, passing through Wyoming and Nebraska. There was a significant duration in the early afternoon where I could have easily convinced myself I was the last man on Earth—for that’s how long it took me to see another sign of human life.

And now, here I sit, halfway across my country, watching as sunset falls on the panoramic vista of the Badlands. It’s hard to believe this dried up place once beheld the dinosaurs, whose reign on this Earth lasted for 165 million years.

There is so much to consider; so little one can truly know. How much is lost for a city boy like me? How is much lost for us all?

All I know is that for this night ahead, I have my dog and my little wood camper. I am content. There is nothing for me to do but enjoy the view.