Detour

It’s 9:24 a.m. on Friday, May 27, 2020, and I’m sitting on my girlfriend’s couch in the small town of Metuchen, New Jersey, with her cinnamon-swirled cat sleeping in a wicker basket to my left. It’s quite the change of scenery from the road warrior lifestyle I had grown accustomed to the last six weeks leading up to the coronavirus pandemic. The state of New Jersey recently passed a shelter-in-place policy last week, restricting non-essential business and travel, and like most Americans, there’s no telling how long I’ll be stuck inside.

My journey across the eastern U.S. officially began two months ago on Friday, January 24. I planned my route along national parks, major cities, and state high points. A high point is the tallest peak of a state, and I figured it would be a fun challenge to try to hike as many as possible.

The first leg of my trip took me through six states, one national park, three high points and too many state parks to count. I’ve experienced all kinds of weather, from the frozen forests in Arkansas to the flooded delta of Mississippi, traveled to remote and wild places, saw animals big and small, visited historical and cultural landmarks, explored interesting cities, made new friends and reconnected with old ones.

The last six weeks have been some of the most challenging, yet rewarding, of my life. This journey has allowed me to exchange a lifestyle of busyness and discontent for one of self-awareness and discovery. It’s all part of the process of immersing myself into the outside world and discovering as many of nature’s little secrets as possible in an attempt to make the storyline of my book more believable.

There’s been many highs, but just as many lows. There’s been water leaks and appliance issues, more nights spent at Walmart parking lots than I’d care to admit, and reoccurring distractions from a previous life I sometimes wish I could escape entirely. Most recently, I learned that someone had broken into my storage shed back home in Dallas and had stolen many of my personal possessions.

The news was difficult to receive, but the worst part was being pulled away from my writing. Imagine being jarred awake from a satisfying REM sleep, and maybe you can visualize what it was like to be woken prematurely from a writing zone that took me weeks to cultivate. My creative focus is only beginning to return after the coronavirus pandemic dealt it a second blow.

I was visiting Atlanta, Georgia, on the weekend of March 14—St. Patrick’s Day weekend. It was the same weekend the term “social distancing” entered the American vernacular, and the weekend President Trump announced travel restrictions on flights from Europe to the U.S.

Speculation was beginning to mount whether domestic flights would be affected next. Not wanting to risk infection, I went ahead and cancelled my scheduled flight home, but I had no intention of postponing the second leg of my road trip. In my mind, I was far less susceptible to contracting the virus living in a van and traveling across rural America than my counterparts living in major urban cities.

My options were to continue my trip as planned, drive back home to Texas, or drive north to New Jersey and stay at my girlfriend’s house until more information came available. After much debate, I decided to hit the road and drive Honcho 13 hours north through eight states until I arrived in tiny Metuchen, NJ.

A week later, California and New York announced shelter-in-place policies, which set the precedent for other states to implement similar policies. Many national and state parks have also begun to either close or restrict access to facilities, and even Planet Fitness, which I visit multiple times a week for workouts and showers, announced a temporary nationwide closure through April 30.

My girlfriend and I are both working from home and restricting our travel after cases of coronavirus surged past 10,000 this week, which means the state now has the second highest number of cases in the country behind New York. We're taking the necessary precautions to prevent infection while still taking Honcho on long drives and weekend hikes.

My biggest fear is not contracting coronavirus, but becoming too complacent in this new setting. Van life is not easy, and being in a cozy environment for too long will only make my transition back to the road that more difficult. With so much of America closed, I have no choice but to wait it out a few more weeks and continue to assess the situation. In the meantime, I’ll plan to make some important repairs to Honcho and catch up on as much work and writing as I can.

Follow me on Instagram at @Joshua_Maven or @HonchotheVan, on Twitter @MaventheRaven or Facebook at Facebook/TheLastImperial.