The Ugly Side of Traveling

Respected. It's hard not to feel like people value your advice and opinion when they come to you with questions about traveling. I've spent a lot of time traveling for the last 18 months, despite some major obstacles and changes in my personal life. Traveling has become what I do, and is a major part of who I am. Whenever I introduce myself to a someone my end of the conversation usually goes something like "hi, I'm Natasha, and traveling is what I do." You get the point. I don't know how many times I have explained to people when they exclaim about how much I'm away from home that traveling is me. I live and breathe adventures. I love my boyfriend and our collection of furry kids. I love my job. I love the process that led me to leave my home and my job in Nebraska and move to Texas. It's the best decision I've ever made. All of those factors combined to allow me to travel more than I ever thought possible, and I'm only 24 years old. I've been to 11 states in the last year and a half, and have plans to go to even more as this year progresses. Adventuring is my thing.

Perhaps because of how much I toot my own horn about my travels, people seem to think that my adventures are all sunshine and rainbows. Just take a look at every story I've ever posted on this blog.

Guys, I love my traveling and I wouldn't give it up even if you paid me to stay home, but sometimes being on the road is difficult. Nobody, not even someone who loves to tell travel stories, likes to talk about the shitty parts of being away from home. Just to set the record straight, I'm not complaining here. You'll never hear me say that I don't want to travel anymore because of any of the following items; they're just inconviences that I accept, deal with, and move on. Also, if you're easily grossed out, stop reading now. You're about to get TMI.

Are you ready to hear the ugly side of traveling?

By now, you all know I prefer to tent camp. Sure, a camper, hotel or someone's house is great, but I love to rough it in the Great Outdoors. Unfortunately, that means giving up certain luxuries. Like a shower. Sometimes there is a dirty, nasty shower available at a campground I happen to stay at, and sometimes there's not. Sometimes the showers are actually pretty nice, and I'm just lazy/exhausted/sunburned/whatever. But there have been many times that I'll go a day or two of getting covered in dirt and sweating through my clothes while hiking, and I'll skip a shower. Sometimes, it's more than just two days. I usually don't give a damn. I'm not likely to go anywhere indoors or highly public, because that's not how I roll, and therefore don't care too much about sweating and the resulting BO. And deodorant? Ha, if it hasn't sweated off by noon I'm doing something wrong. I usually apply it to prevent chaffing anyway. Oh, and you know that hat I love to wear? Sometimes it's to keep the sun off of my head and face. Sometimes it's there to hide greasy hair that hasn't been washed in four days.

Closely related to personal hygiene are my traveling clothes. Yeah, it's not uncommon for me to wear the same clothes multiple days in a row. Even after sweating in them. I'd just rather not carry the extra bulk and weight. Again, it doesn't really bother me unless I happen to sit in a patch of cactus quills, or somehow rub up against poison ivy or something, then I'll change. I'll usually change after a couple of days, but I've been known to go longer.

Now, like I said, traveling a lot forces you to give up luxuries. Toilets are something I've learned to not be too picky about. Is it a somewhat sanitary place for me to do my business? Great, outta my way. I'm not crazy, of course I prefer flush toilets, but port-a-potties are just a normal part of my camping experience, and sometimes, even those don't exist. Trust me, when you gotta go, finding a nice bush or rock to bare your rear to will do just as well as any toilet with a golden lid. Oh, and being of the female gender, well...you can't exactly aim well. There is an art to squat peeing, but even the pros don't alway get it right. That's what sanitizer gel is for, and in the absence of that, you dry. Big deal.

Hiking as much as I do entails certain discomforts, and muscle cramps and soreness are fairly common. Anybody who's hung out with me for any length of time has seen me in one of my many braces for each joint in my body, the most common being knees and wrists. Hiking is a physical activity, and it can be hard on my knees when I have to climb up and down hills, mountains or canyons. There have been times when I've be sore for three days after a difficult hike. And the blisters, oh the blisters. My feet get hot and sweaty, they slide around in my boots during my climbs, and boom: blister. Usually on the backs of my heels, sometimes on the outside of my toes. Let me tell you, blisters on day one make day two through day whatever rather difficult.

Let's talk about driving. I've made it perfectly clear that I love driving. But even sitting in a car for long periods of time has it's drawbacks. For someone like me, who already deals with joint problems, sitting in a car for hours at a time usually yields locked-up hips and stiff knees. Throw in some very bad drivers on the road who don't look to their blind spot before they merge into your lane, or try to pass you on a narrow, winding mountain road and nearly run you off of it and down the mountain side can make anybody ready to get off the road and out of the car.

And then there are the campsites themselves. Most places I've stayed at are amazing. I love finding neat little camping places with amazing views, and I also love organized campgrounds for their efficiency and ease of use. Then, every once in a while, I'll find a really shitty place to camp. Usually it's a campground that looks good from the front, but once you get into it you discover a run-down shit show, and then it's too late to back out without losing your money. Sometimes it's getting toward dusk and you just need a place to sleep and you tell yourself you don't care but then you end up actually wanting to pee behind a bush instead of using their disgusting bathroom. And showering? Yeah, no.

Last, but certainly not least, I miss Jared when I travel. Like, a lot. I won't get all gushy with you, but I mostly miss his presence, just knowing that he's in the same room or area as me. Of course, we both live and work together, so we're near each other often, which makes being away very different. I know it's temporary and it's my choice to go on my travels; yes, I could stay home and not have to miss him, but I also firmly believe I need me-time, too. Me-time just makes me miss Jared a little. I like to check in when I can, to let him know what I did that day and make sure he knows I'm still alive, but a lot of my travels take me to places where cell service is non-existant, and a phone call is out of the question. So, I deal. On that note, I miss my dogs like crazy, too. Especially when I see someone else out on the trail or in the campground with their own dogs. Yeah, I could bring them with me, but I know for a fact that they couldn't keep up with the type of hiking I prefer to do, and Marley couldn't handle the heat. And I'm crazy over-protective about things like snakes, hot surfaces, thorns, ect. Plus the places I like to go typically don't allow dogs on the trails anyway. So I go without my family, miss them a lot while I'm gone, and have them as the major reason that I come back home after every trip.

I'm sure there are other ugly reasons traveling can suck, but these are the highlights. Or rather, lowlights. Next time I tell you a travel story, remember this post and realize that I share my favorite parts, and skim over the less glamorous details of my latest adventure. I'll save you the gory details.

What I'm listening to: Centering, Cleansing by Lifescapes

A Snapshot and The Scoop: Seeing Double

Cat and I were exhausted after spending the hottest part of our first day in the desert hiking, but we still took the time to drive around Arches National Park and see whatever we could from the road. We got out once, at the short trail to Double Arch, and walked the short, flat, sandy distance to the enormous arches. The entire area crawled with tourists climbing around under the arches, and neither Cat nor I felt like dealing with multitudes of human beings. We got close enough to take pictures of us and the arches, but stopped short of actually going under them. We just didn't want to fight people for a spot under the arch. We had other destinations on our agenda that the majority of people never get to experience (those stories here, here, here, here and here.)

Leave me a comment below and tell me about a place that you've visited that just had too many people.

Volcanoes in New Mexico!?

Impulsive. Just across the Texas-New Mexico border, I started seeing mounds of dark rock rising up from the surrounding grasslands. I was about ten hours into a fourteen hour drive from my home in east Texas to Buena Vista, Colorado for a white water rafting trip with Megan. I'll write about that adventure in a week or two, but before I even arrived in Colorado I had a mini side adventure in New Mexico. Like I said, I had been driving and driving, stopped for the night and a few hour's sleep, then drove some more. I had (finally) crossed into New Mexico when I noticed the mounds, and they became more pronounced the farther northwest I drove. Eventually, I pinpointed what they looked like, rising up out of the prairie without a mountain range close by: volcanoes. And I was pretty sure the big one I was staring at and driving directly towards was a shield volcano, with it's broad, gently sloping sides. Easily the largest formation around, it kind of draws your eye.

Soon enough, I started noticing the more severe cinder-and-spatter cone volcanoes with their steep slopes capped by caulderas. Just outside the town of Capulin, NM I saw a sign for Capulin Volcano National Monument. I'm pretty sure I said "What the hell, why not?" out loud, and turned down the monument road. After my customary stop at the visitor's center I wound my little car around the flank of the volcano, circling up toward the rim. There were times where I couldn't see anything out my passenger window except open air and land far, far below. I love roads like that!!!

Once at the dead-end parking lot, I got out and marveled at the view. On one side, there was an ancient volcanic field laid out in front of me for miles. You could even see the Rocky Mountains from way up there! On the other side, the rim of the volcano rose up away from the parkinng lot, with a trail appearing here and there among the rocks. There was also a trail to the bottom of the crater of the volcano, and the volcanic vent that marked the center of the crater. I hiked the steep trail to the vent first, following behind a trio of high school graduates out on their first big adventure (I know because I asked-small talk, ya know?)

Leaving them at the bottom of the crater, I climbed back up and started around the rim trail. Capulin and the surrounding volcanic field is long dead, the product of shifting tectonic plates that have since settled down in that area. From up on the rim, you can see for miles in all directions, and get a sense of how the area would have looked when the volcanoes were active. Everywhere you look you could spot the dark volcanic rock, Cinder-and-spatter cone volcanoes, several shield volcanoes, rippled earth where the magma had once flowed hot under the ground, and is now hardened and proping up the covering soil and grass.

In all, my little side trip only took about an hour of my time, but it was well worth it. I had visited that National Monument with my family when we first started taking yearly two-week vacations every summer, but honestly had forgotten about it until I saw it again. It was neat to revisit and see things through adult eyes, especially on my own. Soon after arriving I got back in my car, thoroughly enjoyed the drive back down the volcano, and headed on my way to Buena Vista. I do have to say once again, it's the little things that make the journey!

What I'm listening to: The Medallion Calls by Hans Zimmer