Flee for the holidays: Cross-Country in 2020 and 2024
There is something about hitting the road in December, when the year is fading out and a new one is quietly rising, that always feels like magic. In both 2020 and 2024, I found myself doing exactly that: packing up my car, unplugging from everything, and driving across this insanely beautiful country while letting the road decide what happened next.
2020: Covid? Let's drive from MA to CA
For nine days in December 2020, I was fully unplugged, living out of my car and drifting across the country. That journey was beyond my wildest dreams, and I hoped the rest of my days would look like that.
I wandered along Route 66, slept at The Shady Lady Bed & Breakfast in Beatty, Nevada, and ended up staying there twice. It was a former brothel with Victorian furniture and peacocks on the roof. The first night happened by chance. The second night came after a surprise California snowstorm forced me to turn around because I did not have chains like the locals.
At sunrise in Death Valley, 282 feet below sea level, the sun never showed but the silence did. I walked far out onto the crunchy salt flats, laid down, closed my eyes, and meditated. My morbid soul was overjoyed to be in such stillness. Leaving the valley, I took a wrong turn and ended up spotting seven wild horses. I pulled over and started singing “Wild Horses” by The Rolling Stones. I am pretty sure they liked it.
That whole trip felt like unexpected magic. While driving through Texas, the moon was so huge I did not even know what I was looking at. I ended up swearing, pulling over, and staring at it in disbelief.
And then there was Winslow, Arizona. Before I left home, my dad yelled out the door, “You gotta call me from the corner of Winslow, Arizona!” just like he used to do on his motorcycle trips. I did not even know I would be passing through, but when I saw the sign, I pulled over immediately. I called him, crying and laughing, and sang, “I’m standing on the corner of Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see.” His response was, “Are you shitting me?!” It was perfect.
In Sedona, I met a retired couple on a trail. They ended up taking me on a secret hike, bringing me into their home for tea, lunch, a shower, dinner, a warm bed, and breakfast. They were vegan and artists and published authors and believers in aliens and zero-waste humans. Their desert landscape paintings covered every wall. They felt like a dream.
2024: Ending One Year and Starting Another
Four years later, December called again.
This time I drove from Massachusetts to California and started the new year in Joshua Tree. Along the way, I soaked in a restored 1912 bathhouse in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where mineral water from the nearby springs has been used for centuries. I watched the winter light move through Monument Valley, hiked a 10,000-year-old volcano in the Mojave Desert, wandered the dunes at Great Sand Dunes National Park, and found wild horses again in Big Bend, walking near the Rio Grande.
After visiting a friend in Utah, we changed our route to Joshua Tree because the universe kept sending small signs. They even gave us some Joshua Tree clothing, which felt like a nudge. We ended up getting the full Joshua Tree experience. We took a road labeled “4 wheel drive recommended,” assumed the Honda CR-V would be fine, and then realized the sand was too deep. After nearly getting stuck, I had to off-road and side swipe cactus and Joshua Tree brush to keep us moving. My car still has the scars.
Later on, while soaking in a natural hot spring along the Rio Grande with Texas on one side and Mexico on the other, we watched wild horses walk down the riverbank at sunset. It felt unreal, like stepping into a painting.
The Thread Between Them
Both trips were born from the same instinct: when everything feels loud, get in the car and drive.
December carries a certain softness, a quiet pause before the next chapter. In 2020, the road cracked something open inside me. In 2024, it reminded me who I had become.
Two different years and two different versions of myself, but the same feeling remained: freedom, wild luck, and the beauty of going where the wind takes you.
