On the Road Nomad Life: Colorado and Yellowstone National Park Wyoming

Walking path at my parents house in Colorado.

Our On the Road Nomad Life Series details the several month Lower 48 US road trip in a Nissan Rogue that we drove from location to location! If you missed the previous post you can stop by HERE for the volume one read! In this on the road nomad trip article we head to Loveland Colorado and Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming!

In less than one week so much has opened up for me. In workouts they often say that 50% of the gains occur in the final 10% of the workout. It’s that point in a workout when you have already achieved a “good” workout and you really probably don’t need to do anymore. But then you push yourself past the brink of where you think you can go and all of the sudden BOOM…months later of doing this you have a six pack or swole arms or your blood pressure lowers or you just have a heightened self esteem.

Was it magic? Easy to think it is but it’s that last 10%. And you get more exponential gains than someone who starts investing in a retirement fund when they are 18 years old.

That’s how I feel about removing the clutter from life and hitting the road.

Loveland Colorado Art Museum Installation

What is important to me while being on a long road trip?

1. Taking care of my body, mind, and soul. I am able to do that fully while on the road.
2. Spending time with people I love. I am keeping in contact with my friends and family in Ohio while seeing my parents face to face and having experiences planned with good friends I don’t often see around the country.
3. Activism. Can still do activism on the road. Can still protest on the road.
4. Volunteering. I am still teaching my free Zoom yoga classes to All People’s Fresh Market and once I settle in some communities will seek out more volunteering opportunities.
5. Work. Oh my career hasn’t changed a bit for writing and business strategy.

What has changed since we hit the road?

1. The removal of petty decisions that fill our days.
2. The removal of emotional and physical clutter that weighed me down.
3. Having to feel the need to fill my day.

Mammoth Hot Springs Wyoming.

I feel that the biggest portion of these gains did not happen until I literally closed the storage unit shut and pulled out of the driveway.

So here we are done with week one and I feel like I pushed through a wall in terms of how to live my life like I just did 100 pushups to finish a workout that I was already exhausted from and could have not done the reps. Just like I could have not pulled out of the driveway.

What have we done on the road since I last dropped in with you that you might be interested in?

Upper Geyser Basin in Yellowstone.

1. Play.

   I have gotten back to playing as an adult and not “scheduled” playtime. I always had my yoga class or HIIT class blocked off. I went running with friends in the woods on the weekend but it was all scheduled. In Iowa our friends Ryan and Ashley drove by and we text each other back and forth and decided to go on a bike ride that night. Ryan popped some wheelies and we just rode around. Nowhere in particular and no timeline to finish. It was just time to play. We saw some other great friends and stopped and talked with them and their kids for a while. Then we saw a few other people and waved and said hello. It was just at our own pace.
   MORE PLAY! We played 21 and Horse last night and for those of you unfamiliar they are how you play basketball when you don’t have enough people to go 3 on 3 or 5 on 5. They are the epitome of games. I have a frisbee with me and a baseball glove with a tennis ball and softball that I damn well plan on using soon. When the day has been finished instead of trying to figure out “What else needs to get done around the house or in my life?” I have simply been able to play. It’s felt great.

2. Seeing my parents and having face to face conversations with people.

   If I was still in a 9-5 office job (well I was never in an office but I definitely had a 9-5 gig) I would not be able to have spent three days with my parents. My parents are getting older and I realize how fortunate I am to have two of them that are still breathing. I also could get hit by a car tomorrow and be dead. The idea that we can’t travel while still doing work to see people we love more often than we normally do is baffling to me. In fact it’s why I left that world. That machine. That system. It serves few well and there’s plenty of space for someone else to take my position in it.
   There’s also been a lot of face to face conversations. I spoke to the landscaping crew at a park after I taught one of my HIIT Fused Yoga Classes on Instagram Live. I met a lady on the street during a walk and I spoke with a fellow Midwesterner at a craft brewery picking up some local farm eggs and vegetables (and a growler refill for my Pops since it was a brewery.) We had masks on and practiced social distancing. But face to face feels better than Zoom. It always had but it does even more so now.

3. My Mom and I spent an afternoon together at an art museum, cruising Loveland Colorado, and walking around.
   Not a huge itinerary and not really an exact science to what we had planned. The ability to do this with people (even just yourself) should not be overlooked. Have gaps in your day to wander before you are allowed to in “retirement.”

4. Only on a cross country road trip can you truly notice the landscape changes of America.
   Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Eastern Colorado all have the same landscape. Then it shifts to the mountains. That only is noticeable during a non rushed cross country road trip! Eastern Colorado looks EXACTLY like Indiana. Now we are in the mountains and I know that landscape will eventually shift as well and to see it happen to be the same for hundreds of miles and then SUDDENLY the shifts is a really beautiful things for the naked eye (or the contact lens or reading glass eye) to witness in person.

5. My dad cooked peppers on the grill filled with eggs and vegetables and then grilled the avocados next to them. Add some hot sauce onto those and you have a clean eating veggie filled masterpiece! If you are a vegan go beans or potatoes instead of the egg and if you are a carnivore (I hope a local one that supports farms that don’t practice animal cruelty or slaughterhouses. Please do your research) then add some chorizo on that!
   It’s definitely worth posting on Instagram. So it’s definitely worth eating. It was fun to just cook and watch the process and learn a new recipe.

6. Yellowstone National Park.
   The first real adventure has arrived. The three days in Yellowstone were amazing. I had not been to this National Park since I was 11 years old and the return to this place was special.
   We camped in Gardiner Montana on the Yellowstone River for two nights and then spent one night at the Madison Campground inside of the park.
   We hiked 17 miles one day and 18 the next. We climbed two mountains, watched Old Faithful erupt, cruised Mammoth Hot Springs at dawn and had the place to ourselves. We ate hard boiled eggs and bananas in parking lots sitting on the back of the car while practicing social distancing.
   Yellowstone is doing a great job in enabling people to experience the park while taking extremely safe measures for visitors. Masks required in all indoor spaces and outdoor at the more popular spots. I felt much safer there than I did in Columbus to be honest.
   We also saw buffalo. Lots of buffalo. And no bears. But we had our bear spray just in case!

Next week will bring adventures in Idaho in volume 3 of our on the road series!
Until then be safe and be well my friends! Mad love to you.

Namaste,

Mike R

Grand Prismatic Spring