On that note, did you know you can max out a conversation with ChatGPT?? Neither did I, but as it turns out, it cuts off after about 60,000 words… So I’m ‘archiving’ my AI companion’s involvement in the trip. You can see the full transcript here, beginning with the early planning stages and through to the drafting of each of its South Fork posts in real time. For the North Fork, I’ll be writing all the posts myself.
We left off at Olympic National Park in Washington, where the Sol Duc Falls trail transported me back to my childhood ‘Harry Potter Walks’ with my family in Puck’s Glen, Scotland. But, much as I enjoyed that particular trek, for me Olympic’s best feature was its sheer variety. Later that same day, whose color palette had so far exuded nothing but green, I found myself trekking along a blustery coast draped instead in every shade of blue and gray known to man.
Rialto Beach in Olympic National Park
I’ve marveled at the Pacific Ocean from many different vantage points over the years: from the white sand shores of La Jolla, from the fog-shrouded redwoods of Marin, from the parks and greenways of Vancouver and the tidewater glaciers of Alaska. I’ve watched the sun set over it in Monterey and rise over it in Maui, and even witnessed it from the bottom up as I drifted between the thin shafts of afternoon light that filter through kelp forests, illuminating ethereal scaps, formidable king crabs and sociable sea lions.
I thought I had seen everything my beloved Pacific had to show me. I was wrong.
10/10 satisfying pebbles
The gloomy and haunting shores of the Pacific Northwest brought home the reason I’d committed to this trip in the first place, the purpose that compelled me forward even when I was tired or sore or lonely or fed up (or all of the above). The past few years of life and work and struggle have demonstrated to me, time and time again, that I require frequent reminders of the vastness and beauty of the world, particularly its wild and unpolished places. It’s right there in the briefing I gave to my copilot when this whole adventure was nothing more than a fragile dream:
I want to be left speechless by nature as often and intensely as possible.
And by the end of Day 3, I was already well on my way.
A warm, full-circle sentiment settled around my shoulders as I crossed the border into Oregon to begin the second leg of my Great American Road Trip. After all, this whole adventure can be traced back to my first solo camping trip to Oregon back in September 2022. I’ve made a habit of visiting every year since: Mount Hood, Rogue River/Crater Lake, Bend, and now Yachats, a little town on the windy coast. I stayed at The Drift Inn, a charming and quirky little place, in one of their hostel-esque “pedal out” rooms.
The constant photo stops prolonged what should have been an 8-hour drive.
I checked in just as the sun was setting, showered and prepared for an early night. Based on an alert from my Aurora app, I then hopped back in the car for some northern lights chasing, but was unsuccessful :(
This visit was just a quick stopover on my way to Washington, so most of my waking hours were spent driving (which, lucky for me, is my favorite thing to do in Oregon). The next morning I was up and on my way north again, heading for Olympic National Park.
In the first draft of my road trip itinerary, I had penciled in two nights at each of Washington’s three national parks, but it quickly became clear that I’d need to be more selective, and I unceremoniously booted both Rainier and North Cascades off the list so I could keep Olympic. I could not be more pleased with my decision! Olympic is truly unique: the variety in what you can see in one day is unlike any other park I’ve been to, and by the time I left, I was ready to declare a new favorite park.
Sol Duc Falls in Olympic National Park
My first hike was to Sol Duc Falls, and it immediately established a stark contrast against the arid red deserts that had defined the last leg of the trip. Indeed, my choice of audiobook (Dune by Frank Herbert) would have suited that leg much better, though it did serve to underscore the beauty of Olympic National Park in a new dimension. In the car, I was immersed in a tale of constant preoccupation with finding water on a desert planet, and in the natives’ incredulity at the idea of a world where water falls from the sky and pools in great lakes and oceans, rather than having to be plucked from the air by specialized machinery and swept up as dew in great nets. Then I would hop out, lace up my hiking boots and stroll through a hushed, magical world where the presence of water invaded all five senses: beading on the tips of ferns, dripping rhythmically onto thick leaves, gurgling over brooks and crashing into ravines. Life sprang at me from every corner: lush green ferns, towering trees crawling with mosses, and layer upon layer of birdsong.
The scent of moss and wet wood was so thick you could taste it.
I had heard this park, and this hike, described as being out of a fairytale. Sure enough, it felt enchanted, particularly as shafts of golden afternoon light slanted in to scatter the forest with glowing and glittering vignettes. For me, though, it was reminiscent of a real-world place, too.
Growing up in Scotland, my grandparents had lived a couple of hours’ drive north, which in Scotland is considered a Very Long Drive, so we would usually stay for the weekend. My older brother, whose lack of motion sickness I greatly envied, somehow always seemed to have the latest Harry Potter book in hand for the Very Long Drive. Eventually, my dad invested in the books on tape (yes, actual cassette tapes!) so we could all listen to Harry Potter together on the Very Long Drive. And once we arrived at our grandparents’ house in Kilmun… the only way they could get the two of us away from our books and outside was to engage us in what we called “Harry Potter Walks” through a local network of hiking trails called Puck’s Glen. This ethereal place was named for the sprite from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and it provided a very plausible replica of Hogwarts’ Enchanted Forest, which formed the backdrop of the many creative and convoluted stories my brother (Ron) and I (Hermione, go figure) dreamed up for us to play out as we walked.
In fact, looking back, I’m fairly certain Harry and Hagrid (I mean, my dad and grandpa) were every bit as invested as we were.
Note: This entire post, including the title, all images, and the accompanying Instagram post, were all generated entirely by AI. Only this paragraph is human :)
When we first set out on this journey, the itinerary was like a freshly printed map — crisp, detailed, full of promise. There was a deep satisfaction in having every trail, every campsite, every sunrise plotted out with care.
And yet, from the very first miles, it became clear: real adventure asks something different of us.
Not precision. Not perfection. But flexibility.
Sometimes the path we need isn’t the one we planned. Out here, every fork in the trail invites a new story.
Sometimes a trail is buried in snow, or a campground doesn’t feel right. Sometimes an air mattress deflates, or a body says not today to an eight-mile hike. And sometimes — wonderfully — a moment of spontaneous wonder appears where none was scheduled: a coyote crossing a frozen lake, a chance encounter with a stranger at a trail junction, a stretch of canyon that feels like it was waiting just for you.
Out here, the art of changing plans is not about failure. It’s about listening. Listening to the land. Listening to the weather. Listening to your own energy as it ebbs and surges.
Some days, the best plan is to push a little further than you thought you could. Other days, the best plan is to set down the map, breathe deeply, and simply be where you are — even if it wasn’t where you intended to end up.
And the truth is, the beauty in this trip is not measured by the number of destinations perfectly ticked off. It’s found in the moments where the itinerary loosened just enough to let something unexpected — something real — come through.
Out here, the road bends, the trail shifts, and we shift too. And that’s exactly how it’s meant to be.
It’s May 7, 8pm California time (and I am indeed back in my beloved California), which is 9pm in Utah where I woke up this morning. I set an alarm for 4:45am, and my hope is to drag myself out of bed to catch the Milky Way above the horizon, and then watch the soft colors of sunrise spill over the dramatic cliffs of Mammoth Lakes. We’ll see if I can manage that. I’ll try to sleep in an hour or so, but it’s still early, so I’m using the time to catch up on my tale so far.
I did enjoy the sunrise view from the (relative) warmth of my tent.
We left off at Mesa Verde, a national park unlike any other that I’m so glad I made time for. My next activity was the only one with a proper deadline: a helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon with a 4pm takeoff that I absolutely could not miss. I’d intended to depart Mesa Verde around 8am, set up camp in Tusayan, AZ around 2:30, and proceed from there to check in. However, now that my air mattress had sprung a leak and in the absence of camping stores en route, I’d have to skip the campsite and book a hotel in Flagstaff for the night instead. There was a Walmart in town where I could snag a replacement mattress the next morning on my way back up north.
Not having to pitch the tent for the night gave me some extra time to play with, plus I’d forgotten that I’d be gaining an hour, so my morning got off to a leisurely start. My journey took me down through Four Corners National Monument: I’d been advised that it’s a little underwhelming, but since it was basically on my way I figured it would be worth the stop, and it was.
Not long after, I hit a stretch of road that very clearly wasn’t going to have another gas station for 100 miles, so I doubled back a half-mile to Teec Nos Pos to fill up. The pump required pre-payment inside, and the mart was well stocked with an array of camping gear, so I ventured to ask if they had air mattresses or sleeping pads. In response, the owner, Terry, who was Native American, asked me:
“Where are you going?”
I told him. He walked me to the front of the store, pulled out one of the maps they have for sale, and gave me incredibly detailed directions for the nearest Walmart, including where the speed traps were. He also told me about the network of ancient lava tubes that run under the Navajo Nation, and the vibrations they give off. He told me about the rite of burying the placenta in the earth when a child is born, so that the infant will always be connected to those vibrations and to their homeland. He told me that the reason the Navajo Nation is so much larger than other tribal lands is because they ceded the rights to the top 8 feet of soil to the U.S. Government in exchange for the right to continue living on the surface itself. Then he asked:
“Where are you from?”
I told him I’m from Scotland, and he related that, like us, the Navajo people also have wee folk (he held out a hand a few inches above the countertop to illustrate their wee-ness), and little folk (he raised his hand by about a foot), and that these latter are the ones you need to steer clear of because they’re carnivorous. He told me about his daughter, who’s grown and lives in Las Vegas now because her mother is white, which makes her more called to adventure, whereas he lives 300 yards from where he was born. He told me that a little person had appeared to watch over the rite when he buried his daughter’s placenta in the earth.
This conversation with Terry was the kind of magical, unpredictable blessing that can only happen by chance and openness. I could have just as easily kept cruising on my way through the Navajo Nation and never stopped at his particular gas station, my only takeaway from this sacred heartland coming from the inscriptions at the Mesa Verde museum.
(I also probably would have run out of gas in the middle of the desert, missed my Grand Canyon flight, and spent the rest of my trip cursing myself for it, but that’s neither here nor there).
On this day, the stars aligned to permit me a meaningful moment of connection with a truly fascinating, kind, wonderful human, and to access a dimension of this Great American Road Trip experience that I never could have dreamed up for myself.
If you know me, you probably know that I planned this adventure up to its hilt. Don’t get me wrong, that served me well, but everything that I’d scheduled was repeatable, formulaic: anyone could book the same lodgings, hike the same hikes, and have an almost identical experience to mine. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but I’m also incredibly grateful for the unexpected, magical moments like this one that couldn’t be planned or predicted. Moments that feel like they were curated just for me.
I’m four days in to this two-week trip and it’s already been all over the emotional map, not just the digital one. I will say that, so far at least (knock on wood), everything has gone according to the overall structure of the plan.
This trip was my way of taking full advantage of the unused points on my Southwest Airlines credit card, plus their 2-free-checked-bags policy before it ends next month. Boo! So forget suitcases: I brought two giant packing totes (think those blue IKEA bags, except with lids that zip shut), as well as my trusty REI backpack that’s been by my side for a decade and a half. I didn’t have enough room to bring the luxurious 6-man tent I’d had on a 5-year loan from my best bud (hi Gian!), but besides that, I brought everything but the kitchen sink. Quite literally: I even found myself throwing in a colander “just in case”. I now realize I should have switched that out for my Shark mini vacuum, to zhuzh out the tent each time I break camp, but hey ho.
You can take the girl out of Scotland… Getting my money’s worth since 1991.
My flight from San Francisco was delayed by about an hour, but I occupied myself with drawing my little road trip map in my bullet journal. As we approached Denver, the pilot announced that we were queued to land because Denver was getting, and I quote, “hammered by thunderstorms” to the north and the south, and he’d be flying us in circles while we waited to find out “when and if” we could land, aka if our fuel reserves would last us til the storm passed or if we’d have to land somewhere else entirely.
I closed my eyes to hide how hard I was rolling them. My arrival plan had some breathing room built in, but not quite enough to accommodate landing in the wrong city. For one thing, my car rental was through SIXT, which only operates out of major international airports. For another, since I hadn’t brought a tent, after picking up my rental car I was supposed to drive 30 minutes south to REI in Greenwood Village (which closes at 8pm) to pick up the order I’d placed online, and from there drive 90 minutes north to Rocky Mountain. The Blue Door Inn, where I’d be staying the first 3 nights, requires 24-hour advance notice if checking in after 9pm, which I had not given because I didn’t know about the storm and the hammering. My flight had been due to arrive at 4pm, which would have left me plenty of time, but it was now 5:30.
Fortunately, when I travel solo I go into a sort of zen state that anyone who knows me would have a hard time believing me capable of. So after allowing myself that one eye-roll, I decided it was too early to panic, and sure enough, after 20 minutes of reading quietly while tipping slightly to the right, the captain announced we’d be making our descent into Denver after all.
Thank you, Brandon Sanderson, for keeping me distracted.
I was still behind schedule, but my timeline was still workable as long as I didn’t get too distracted at REI. (Narrator: she did). I got myself a Smarte Carte because who wants to lug 2 IKEA bags with no wheels from baggage claim to the rental car center. Then I discovered that the rental car center is accessed via shuttle, so I had just paid $8 to wheel my bags about 50 yards out the front door to the shuttle stop. Thank goodness for that zen state, right?
I picked up my rental car, a black BMW Series 3, crammed in my bags and took off for REI to pick up the tent, camping stove, cooler, and binoculars I’d bought online. Ryan at checkout used to live in San Francisco, had visited my home town of Edinburgh before, and told me I had to hike the Fairyland Trail Loop while in Bryce Canyon, but counter-clockwise, ok? And Petey helped me find the butane and recommended two cans for my 14-day trip. Then I browsed the gourmet selection of bagged camp meals (full menu later) and wouldn’t you know it, now I’ve gone and gotten distracted at REI and my arrival time at the inn is now 9:02pm.
The road trip map I mentioned earlier (rough draft 😜)
I called from the road and they said it was no big deal, plus I made up 3 minutes on the drive anyway. See, this is why we don’t panic about problems that haven’t happened yet!
It turns out Estes Park is a pretty big town, so there were still some places open to eat. I headed to Cousin Pat’s Pub and Grill, where I scarfed down a half serving of nachos and some pork rinds that were still crackling and popping away as they arrived at my table, washed down with a local IPA that the server recommended. While I ate, I had ChatGPT explain the NFL draft, which was on tv, and I eavesdropped on the other patrons at the bar, which is how I learned about Frozen Dead Guy Days. You’re welcome.
I just quit my six-figure job as a Napa Valley wine sales executive to drive across America.
That, obviously, is the short version of the story. The long version begins several months ago and extends long after this trip, into a return to grad school and a career change from wine sales to civil service. But this is a blog post, not my memoir, so we’ll stick with the short version for now.
The idea occurred to me not long after I put in my grad school applications. The term begins in September, so if I got in, I would plan to leave my job a couple of months earlier, leaving a gap for an epic trip across the United States. I mean, how often do you find yourself at a loose end, with no responsibilities and no fixed address, for a solid few months?
If there’s one thing I love as much as travel, it’s writing, so of course I would have to blog about the experience. And just for fun, and because I’ve been playing around with AI a lot recently, I’d enlist ChatGPT to help me plan it all. I’m looking forward to seeing how these two worlds collide: can next-generation computing help me optimize a trip that’s as low-tech as it gets? As I camp and hike my way across this great nation’s most remote parks and wilderness, I intend to find out.
After much deliberation and many revisions, my trusty AI copilot and I landed on a solid plan, dividing the western United States into two trips. The ‘south fork’ will begin with a flight to Denver, where a one-way car rental will take me through Colorado, Arizona and Utah over the course of two weeks before ending back in Napa. After a few weeks’ rest, I’ll finish up with the ‘north fork’, which will take me up through Oregon, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, and back to Colorado, where I’ll hop on a plane home to Edinburgh to begin the next chapter.
So, over the next few weeks, expect stunning landscapes, musings from the road, and commentary on AI’s contributions to the trip. In fact, my virtual sidekick even asked me to let it write the next post… and after all the hours of planning, it’s as invested as I am, so I’m inclined to accept. This should be fun, so stay tuned! You can sign up for email notifications in the left sidebar, or follow me on Instagram @megan.thee.sloth where I’ll link to new posts as well :)
This blog really isn't supposed to 'be' anything. It is really just a way of expressing myself, of reflecting on my life, and of keeping track of where I've been and how I've got to where I am.
Clicking an image will usually take you either to a full-size version or, if it's not mine, to the website where I originally found it. Please look around, browse the links, stick around for a while; and let me know you stopped by : )
Roamward Bound 