adam overland

I’m feeling a bit down the last few days, which is a little odd because I haven’t been pounding booze and the weather has been ok. Still, I’m prone to it and I think it’s because my trip is ending, and therefore it is the end of something, and goodbyes and endings always make me sad. Sometimes, even if a little bird flies into my yard and then it leaves 20 seconds later, something in me is like, “Come back.” 

Or maybe it’s just change that makes me sad, which by definition brings some discomfort. But they say that on the other side of discomfort is usually growth, and so you go through, sometimes not by choice, but because you have to, because that’s just life and time moves you along the road whether you want to go or not, dragging you alongside the vehicle on the concrete. 

At the same time, I’m also feeling like I’m about ready for my trip to end. Last year was my first attempt at working from the road in my little camper, and I was gone about 10 weeks, with 8.5 of that in the camper. This year I’ll have spent 83 nights in the camper, which is a lot of time in a space that is something like 100 square feet. I think the ideal work-from-the-road trip is probably something like 8 to 9 weeks, and after that the self-isolation and loneliness begins to creep. 

Part of me is also exhausted, because traveling all over, booking campsites, and trying not to wonder where you’ll stay next takes a lot of planning, and I’m not a planner. Plus, I’m also not a person who typically does things. My usual routine is that I work, I go to the gym, I eat, I read, I watch TV, I read, I sleep. Repeat. Then on a weekend I might do one thing—maybe meet up with a friend or go fishing. 

But when I’m on these “workations,” not only am I working, but there’s so much to see and do that you don’t want to waste the opportunity, so I’m doing something—usually hiking—nearly every night. So I kind of just want to sit on my couch for a week when I get back and watch NBA basketball and that new Hulu show, Shogun, which is pretty good. 

And since I’m going back and forth with each paragraph here countering the previous paragraph’s main point, I have to say again that there’s just so much more out here and all around the country to see, and I’m realizing I’ll never be able to see it all. So maybe that’s why I’m sad. Maybe the parks have brought my mortality into keener focus, which could be their new slogan. Instead of “preserving the natural and cultural resources … for this and future generations,” it could be, “You won’t be able to see it all even if you live to be 100, which you definitely won’t.” 

After all, there are 63 national parks in America. Plus 133 national monuments, which are not just statues, like you might think when you hear “monument” (though some are), but are often huge areas themselves, consisting of tens of thousands of acres of protected land. At Canyonlands, for instance, where I am now, I first had to drive through Bears Ears National Monument, one of the newer ones, which has two huge rock/mountain outcroppings that look like—you guessed it—bears ears. Which is super cool. 

The National Park Service actually manages more than 400 “units” covering more than 85 million acres, varyingly referred to by designations such as national monuments, memorials, seashores, historic sites, preserves and reserves, recreation areas, wilderness areas, and more. There are actually 19 naming designations, which is why most people just call them “parks.” It’s overwhelming.

And don’t even get me started on National Forests—nearly 200 million acres of them—managed by the National Forest Service, an entirely different organization! Forests, say the National Forest Service, “are managed to provide Americans with a wide variety of services and commodities, including lumber, cattle grazing, mineral products, and recreation with and without vehicles. Extraction of natural resources from national forests is permitted, and in many cases encouraged.” I’ve actually camped by cows on at least two occasions on this trip. 

I figure that if you really want to see the all the national parks and get a feel for them, you could spend about six weeks in each, which perhaps seems ridiculous until you visit one and realize you’ll never see more than a few sites, a few acres, or perhaps even a few hundred acres if you’re a good hiker. But there are 85 million acres. So let’s say you visit about one park per month. At that rate you will have visited all the national parks within about 6 years. Then you probably need another 12 years for the monuments, and you’ll never get through all the forests, no matter how much time you have. 

Which isn’t to say there are too many parks. I have to say, at every national park, monument, or other, I’ve recognized immediately why it’s a protected area. It’s because your mouth is hanging open every time you drive around the next bend, and you’re stopping to take so many pictures that you have to upgrade your phone to hold them all.

To put parks in perspective, there are 1.9 billion acres of land in the United States. So 85 million acres of parks isn’t all that much. Also, over 10 million acres of land in the U.S. are owned by just 5 guys, whose first names include or have included, but are not limited to: Red, Ed, Ted, Stan, and John. So 85 million acres for the other 320 million of us actually seems paltry in comparison. 

Near my hometown in Sioux Falls, SD, is something called the Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. They manage satellites and other science things, and in 2001, somebody at the center said, “Hey, some of these pictures are pretty cool.” And so they started a series called Earth as Art, featuring land and cloud formations. I’ve always found the collection fascinating and beautiful, and I’d love to visit every one of the places photographed, but there’s just too much beauty packed into our planet for one person to see it all, which is why there are so many of us. One of my favorites is this one of southwestern Iran. 

The photo I used above is from EROS of the national park I’m at now—Canyonlands. Its description reads, “The Green River and the Colorado River meet within Canyonlands National Park in Utah. Snow-covered Mount Waas, shown in light blue on the right side of the image, overlooks the arches, canyons, and bizarre rock formations that prevail throughout this region.” 

And if I zoom in really, really close, I still can’t see myself.