day 01.
Sooooo…. Here goes nothing! My first blog post of my first day of my first solo trip. I hope yall enjoy it, and please know before you read this, my plan is for it to be super conversational. Consider yourself on one of those “It’s A Small World After All” type rides at Disney, but through my mind as I recall this amazing trip. Yes, I said recall because, unfortunately writing this in the moment would’ve been impossible and a half-assed effort, and you guys deserve way more than that.
Okay, so, day 01. My flight left at around 8 am EST arriving in SLC around 1030 am. The flight time was a little longer than I thought, but good flight all in all cause I slept and it was still pretty early in the morning MST time (mountain standard? Idk haha).
Hartsfield Jackson International Airport
never let me down.
(except for that one time i missed my flight).
Thankfully, Connor at Mighty Vans was super flexible and accommodating. He was fine to meet me whenever to pick up the van. That was my first stop. The airport definitely didn’t have a lot of black people, but not in a racist southern town kinda way.
My uber driver was black and I remember being grateful of that. We chatted on the short ride over to pick up the van which was a nice way to curtail my nerves, and from thinking “wtf am I even doing right now.” I’ll never forget him telling me about the community and universities in the city and how his cousin got kicked out for having sex. That’s when I knew I was far away from home lol.
Pulled up to Connor’s and picked up my #MightyVan and boy was it something! Pretty much like the pictures, but certainly sobering to see where you’ll essentially be living for the next 8 days. He showed me how to use everything, and how to control everything. When it comes to stuff like this, I definitely pay attention and follow instructions. One thing I loved about Might Vans is that my bed was always out and I didn’t have to move anything around. The main things I had to remember were things involving the water and cook top. Once I had the keys, my first stop was the grocery store. I had a preplanned list of groceries, that I think I made on my flight to Utah. Although I had a fridge, and essentially a stove with two eyes, I wanted to keep it simple, and get things that were non parishable or easily put together, like a sandwich. *See my full list below.
Not much, I know.
I’m sure I grabbed things not on this list, but this was the baseline.
Sn, anyone else use a text thread w/ themselves for reminders and thoughts?
The van pick up spot had a Smith’s grocery store (Kroger equivalent) down the street from it so I made my way and got my groceries for the week, and some other incidentals like one of those gadgets that holds your phone in the car.
As I’m exiting the grocery store, the snow begins to come down. Im low key panicking about driving this big ass camper in the snow. But once I put away my groceries, made sure everything to secure and stowed away, I was prepared, excited and ready to hit the road!
Pretty much every day I was hours behind whatever time I had planned to do X thing, and this started from the very beginning leaving the grocery store. On my way it was a snowy beautiful scenic (this word will come up a lot) drive to my first destination, Arches National Park. If you look at my itinerary, I had planned to drive through Dead Horse State Park at sunset on my first day, but leaving late and daylight savings were against me, and I went straight to where I’d be laying my head on my first night.
Arriving at my first campground was…memorable. Being late means arriving late, arriving late means after dark, so going somewhere you’ve never been in the dark, doing something you’ve never done was…new! 18 miles into the park (seemed like forever, but I came to learn that wasn’t even an abnormal distance for these amazing parks). This park in particular I had looked up and was first come, first served. So I wasn’t entirely sure there would be a space, but it was Utah in December, I think I had a good chance. I was relieved pulling in because, there were other vans (this reassured me I was at least in the right place). I picked a spot I liked an backed in. Got mad comfy on the bed, checked in with my peoples and chilled out for a few, after all, it was dark but not late. Maybe an hour after me getting situated I see a flashlight, and a man knocked on the window. He told me he had reserved this space, and this is how I learned to book campsites haha. Thankfully he was nice about it. Knowing how it works now, I’d probably be really bothered if someone was in a site I booked lolol. But alas, I got un-situated and moved my van and went out to the front of the campground and paid for an open site and put the receipt on the post in front of the correct site. At this point I’m wiped out. I triple check the doors are locked and knocked out.
