One month has gone by since the end-of-summer adventure. Here are the quick stats: 3,750 miles round trip in the bus in 16 days through 11 states. No breakdowns or wrong turns. No GPS, A/C or long stretches on the interstate. Road-kills include a bazillion Nebraskan grasshoppers and a few near misses by dive bombing birds. Highlights of the trip were visits to the Yampa River, Arches National Park, Mesa Verde and old downtown Santa Fe.
Traveling in the bus is the best way to go around the country. Taking all the back roads and stopping in small towns along the way makes everywhere feel connected. It's a great feeling to have everything you need along with you and to just putter along at your own pace. Which, when in the bus, is a very slow pace. As in, when traveling uphill in the mountain passes of Colorado, a robin was flying alongside faster than the bus could move.
But getting there fast is not the point when you're on a vacation in the bus. Really, getting there fast just means you're missing out on everything in between here and there. Had this trip been taken in a modern car, I would have missed out on riding around in the rolling green lolly-pop hills in Nebraska (a state that I thought was supposed to be flat), watching the early morning sunrise disappear into storm clouds New Mexico and feeling the dusty heat off the cattle feed yards in Kansas. Well, that last one I could have done without just fine...
The very best part of traveling in the bus though, is always feeling like I'm at home. I could keep traveling for months and never feel homesick. Maybe it's the fort-on-wheels feeling when that pop top is up, or the hours of camping & fixer upper time spent with it so far, but it feels as cozy as the home I've got that's made of brick.
