Tidbits
- Fall sunsets over Lake Tahoe
- Sand Harbor State Park
- Road trippin’
- The weird, unexplainable connection I suddenly had yesterday
October 2022
| Su | M | T | W | Th | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 10/1 |
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | 31 | 11/1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Where In The World Was I?
- Lake Tahoe, California
- 🚐 Nevada
- 🚐 Utah
- Denver, Colorado
Hooked on ☕️
- Clydes Coffee Roasting Company – the place where I reverse engineered my goals
- Cuppa Tahoe – the place where I saw a fellow van lifer that I actually follow on YouTube 🤯
- Trailfolk Coffee Co – the place where I had a chill journaling sesh
Tahoe Food (mostly boba 🤪)
- Tahoe Bear Tea House – the place with the SUPER friendly employees
- Freshies Ohana Restaurant & Bar – the INCREDIBLE food (buffalo cauliflower, fish taco, red curry)
- Teazentea – a biiiiiiiit pricey 😅
Sunsets Over Lake Tahoe
Fall In Tahoe
Sand Harbor State Park
Man the $15 entrance fee really got to me, but we committed to it and it turned out to be absolutely worth it.
My LORD, the SUNSET pics that night were INSANE (pics dropping soon 👀)
I also went for a swim and it was SO nice. All these high alpine river and ocean cold water plunges prepared me for this 💪
🚐 Road Tripppppppp
Wednesday I hit the road!
- Wednesday (12th) ~7hrs driving 🚐 Carson City, NV ➡️ Sevier Lake, UT
- Thursday (13th) ~6.5 hrs driving 🚐 Sevier Lake, UT ➡️ Dotsero, CO
- Friday (14th) ~2.5 hrs driving 🚐 Dotsero, CO ➡️ Arvada, CO
I listened to lots of podcast/YouTube videos and just put time behind the wheel. In the past I’d usually only do about 3-4 hours of driving, but this time I didn’t really have any interest in stopping (for longer) in between.
Man, the fall colors through I70 in Colorado were incredible. Colorado is definitely unmatched for fall in the west.
Seeing The World Differently
This was quite interesting…
When I was driving through Utah, something hit me. The landscape was so much more interesting than I remembered, the rocks and colors were so cool. I don’t remember it being that breathtaking, but for some reason it felt different. I appreciated it just a little bit more.
I couldn’t help but think about some of the first times I visited California, Nevada, and Utah. Back in 2019 when I interned in Seattle for the summer, I just fell in love with how lush, green, and hilly it was up in Seattle. When I moved to San Francisco, that lush green was all I could think about.
However, when I moved, I was met with a lot of dry, brown landscape. The first time I drove through Nevada and Utah, it was similar. There was always this subtle layer of disappointment that things weren’t lush and green like the Pacific Northwest.
Things changed, though.
This time it was nothing like that. It felt like I was seeing these places for the first time, even though I’ve seen them a number of times before.
If felt like I was truly appreciating them for exactly how they were, not what they were not.
And that really hit me.
Back… Home?
In many ways it feels like I’m “back home,” despite not having an apartment here anymore. Some combination of having all my stuff around here and the recency of being here makes it feel like this is my place to chill. I also just like Denver. The neighborhoods feel similar to Seattle, which I also liked.
I went back to Wash Perk the day after I got back and wow… that felt good.
This weird feeling came to me as I sat in the exact same place I was on the morning of my birthday in April this year. That night I headed out to Zion National Park, my very first trip in my new van.
I was in the same physical location, but I was so different. I just spent the last 3.5 months traveling around the western U.S. in a van, the dream that was coming to life in that very seat in April. I felt this deep connection to my past self.
How do you possibly explain that feeling…
I have no idea
Why I’m REALLY In Denver
The main reason I’m back is because I have a lot of little projects I want to complete around the van before winter hits.
One of those projects was securing skis for the season ✅. Man I can’t describe how HYPED I am for those first turns.