A Hippie and Her Ghosts

… to Utah? Kind of.

Welcome back! To the ridiculousness that is me living in a tiny camper and trying to travel all over the U.S. The last part of my adventures ended with me near Lake Mead, Nevada. After my old car broke down, I ended up getting a new car. I was still a little stranded but, at least I could work.

First, pretty pictures from my drive everyday for about the next month. (FYI: I’m really late to posting these. I was in Nevada for all of November 2024 and the first week of December. It’s6 now April 2025… its fine.)

So yes, I did drive a lot while I was in Nevada. Because I could not tow the camper with the new car, I had to pick somewhere that I would be comfortable leaving the camper. A) To be able to sleep in and not need to move around and, B) To be able to leave during the day to work. I don’t mind staying in a parking lot here and there, but I didn’t have any idea when I would get the hitch receiver and brake control in the new car. I had to rent a Uhaul truck just to get the camper to the campground that I picked. Which ended up being Callville Bay right off Lake Mead. It was about a 40min drive from the campsite to Henderson, Nevada. It was very quiet and calming, which I needed.

Everything leading up to this point was starting to take its toll on me. The old car breaking down… knowing I put it through too much… getting towed to a shop… waiting a week unable to do much, only to find out the piece we were waiting on wasn’t even right. I had to give up jobs and ask for help in the form of money, which is really difficult for me. But I tried to find fun things to do and places to go in Overton, mostly to keep myself busy. While I was there, I did go to a couple AA meetings. The night before I got the car towed to Vegas, I remember being so mad at myself for ending up in this position. My brain can be a real mess sometimes. I even spoke at the meeting. I had no desire to drink, even through all the bullshit I never once had that thought, “well fuck it, why not now?” That used to be a problem for me. When everything else was falling apart to just drown it out. To use the situation as an excuse to justify my actions. But I wasn’t even happy with the fact that that wasn’t my problem. Instead, I found other things to get mad at myself for. Including not getting sober sooner. Not having more money saved up. Not being more prepared for something that I didn’t know was going to happen until it was too late. And then I take it one step further and get mad at myself for being mad! And the brain spiral happens. Someone else in the meeting did talk about how we could all look back and think, “if only I had gotten sober this time, or that time, or done this instead…” And I was reminded to take a moment to look at how far I have come, and what I have accomplished. Which is enlightening and I’m grateful for. However, it is still frustrating to think about. Luckily its so far in the past at this point I just don’t think about it much.  But that brain spiral is something that I go through a lot. I have heard there are people out there in the world that don’t have this problem. And kudos to you! I’m learning how to not do that, in lots of ways. And really what it comes down to is: I can’t change the past, but I can learn from it and change where I go from here. (Its still a struggle bus camper.). And I can choose how I react and where I go from here.

So, straight back to working. When my old car broke down, I had a lot of merchandising jobs lined up. All for the same company through the Wonolo work app. But when I wasn’t able to get the car fixed right away and plans kept changing some of those jobs had to be let go to other people. Luckily, about a dozen were saved for me. With the camper somewhere safe, and a running car, I went back to doing delivery work and odd jobs around Henderson and Las Vegas. I did mostly try to stick to Henderson/Southwest Vegas. I got to drive to some really neat places in the mountains. Neighborhoods that were up these super steep roads, and practically on cliffs. I also drove past the Dinosaur house several times. They had actual hours for tours, but I just stopped by on one of my deliveries to look outside. There were times however that deliveries took me into some parts of Vegas that I would rather not go back to. I did learn over that month to be able to spot on the maps pretty easily if it was somewhere I was comfortable with going depending on the time of day. Also, stop lights in Vegas are ridiculously long and it takes forever to get anywhere.

I really wasn’t planning on staying in Nevada as long as I did. But, I had to save up money to get the hitch receiver and electronic brake control installed in the new car. I got the hitch receiver ordered pretty quickly, once I just got one online myself. I tried calling a couple places in Henderson and Vegas to see about getting them installed and ran into a few problems. My car was too new for there to actually be a hitch receiver for it. One place suggested that I order the latest one for a 2024 and hope it fits, but refused to install it. Nowhere else would even take the chance of ordering it to see if it fit. Except Uhaul. The same place I rented the truck from to move the camper, actually had their own shop just for that. They let me have the receiver shipped straight to them and held on to it for me, until they were able to install it and the brake controller super easy. I was still running into the same problem in Henderson that I was running into in Grand Junction. It was difficult for me to consistently make the money I needed to keep up with everything. So everyday I was on every work app that I could find. I have my main go-to’s that have pretty much stayed the same, but I was downloading everything I could find and trying it out to see if I could find more work.

Which is what led me to choose going to Salt Lake City in December… One of the apps I downloaded before starting this journey is called Wonolo. One of my sisters had used it a few years before. She traveled at the time in her van with her cat. And she recommended it to me because she had great success with it for temp jobs doing store resets mostly. I had still been learning all the ins and outs throughout the beginning of my trip. It wasn’t until I was near Nevada that I was finding jobs with the app, however. Once I started getting the hang of it, I started looking for jobs further and further away. That’s one of the things I really like about Wonolo. You can look for jobs all over the U.S. regardless of your current location. And I’ve seen some really awesome opportunities.

While I was in Nevada, I found and took a job a couple weeks out in Salt Lake City. It was setting up a new dollar store for opening. The job itself was 3 weeks long and paid really well. I started looking on facebook groups for places to park my camper. I also thought I’d try just staying in the parking lot at the job if they’d allow me. Getting to that job became my next deadline. And timing for everything seemed to fall into place. I ended up staying at the Callville Campground for 30days, their limit. I had to get a new temporary tag, as the original from buying the car was only good 30 days. And gave myself another 30 days. (The plan was to register the car in Cheyenne after the job was done.) I barely managed to get the hitch receiver and brake control installed the day I needed to leave. The only problem was that I couldn’t get my furnace to work. I had, kinda luckily, decided to make sure it was working before I left Nevada for Utah. Because I hadn’t used it in so long, and it would not come one. So, I made that part of the plan to stop somewhere along the way and try to figure it out.

Uhaul had absolutely no problem installing the hitch receiver. Even though it was technically for a 2024 and all that, it matched up just fine. It did take them a lot longer to get the brake control installed, though. Technically I was supposed to be out of the campground by early afternoon, but I called them to let them know I’d be coming to get the camper and be out of the way as soon as the car was done. They really weren’t worried about it. I only saw two other campers the entire month that I was there. Apparently, November/Early December was too early for the snowbirds. I had gotten the camper mostly ready that morning before taking the car in, but it was already getting dark by the time I was all hooked up and ready to go. So, I went back to Henderson and found a quiet (or so I thought) parking lot for the night. My original plan was to park at the library, but when I got there the parking lot was packed even though they were getting ready to close. That was on the edge of a much larger shopping plaza. So, I drove a few rows down and parked for the night. This parking lot was completely empty when I parked, but before I knew it people trying to park at the library started spreading over to the larger parking lot, and within 30mins the place was packed. Cars, people, children and dogs all around me. Because across the street was a Christmas Parade and Street Festival. I had already gotten comfortable though. So, I went over and watched part of it, then back to the camper to make dinner. I would say the majority of people were gone again within an hour.

The next day I actually stayed in the Henderson/Las Vegas area doing a few merchandising jobs. Gave me a little more gas money and then slowly started the journey to Salt Lake City, Utah. That night I stopped at a casino in Mesquite. They advertised free RV parking. Which was really just a small parking lot where everyone was parked wherever they wanted to be. It was great. I did gamble a whole $10. It was all I could justify spending but gave me a shot to win big… maybe. It didn’t last long, but it was fun. The entire time I was in Nevada that last night was the only time I gambled. I’m not huge into it, but I like to try every now and then. I hear you can’t win if you don’t play. Sounds like it could get expensive though. I’ve only had a few slight lucky chances at winning money in my life. From Mesquite, I headed to St. George, Utah. My plan was to stop by an RV place and try to get someone to check out my furnace before I got too far up North. In my not-so-infinite wisdom, I didn’t think about there not being anywhere open on Sunday. I should have learned that after almost running out of gas in Kansas that one Sunday months before. So, I ended up at an Autozone. Using YouTube and a cheap multi-meter I bought inside I started following wires and checking connections trying to figure out what was happening, or not. At one point one of the delivery drivers stopped to ask me what I was having problems with. Turns out that he used to be an RV repair guy before working at Autozone. He said he’d come back to help me after a delivery he was taking out. So, I spent the next 45min still trying to figure it out myself, and I had it narrowed down to the thermostat not working properly. After all that, he comes to help, and I walk him through everything I’ve already canceled out and why. So, we mess with the thermostat and with just moving one little piece it comes on… In this moment I was very happy that it was working, but also very frustrated. He looked more closely and said, “well its probably okay where it is,” then proceeded to explain to me that there must have been dirt or something between the connection. This will come up again down the road in a few months, beware. For then, I tried turning the furnace off and back on again several times, and it kept working fine. I decided it was fixed, and I was good to go. I didn’t even spend that much money. Plus, the multimeter I bought could possibly be used for ghost hunting. Regardless its an investment. I kept driving North for the rest of the day and stopped in Beaver, Utah. It was getting dark and cold, and I was very grateful to have a working furnace that night. We found a parking spot at the Chevron along with all the trucks. I found an edge spot next to a light and parked under it. I had to make sure my tiny camper wouldn’t get run over. I planned to get up early the next morning and even have a little extra time to make it to the job site before 11am.

I woke up the next morning to snow. Not a lot of snow. It is very typical for it to snow there. I knew it had started snowing long after dark and cold had set in, so it shouldn’t be icy, or wet. But I was worried about driving with the camper in snow. I had been checking the weather for the last week in preparation. I, for some crazy reason, thought I was going to get through with no problems and clear skies. It is because of this trip, and one of my amazing sisters, that I now own chains for my car…

Boreas and I only made it about 30min up the road. Even though the weather app was showing no snow, it was still snowing. And snowing harder and harder as we drove further. As I started debating whether or not I should pull over, Boreas went into complete panic mode. Meowing like crazy, climbing all over the car, getting in my face. He’s usually really good about finding a spot to curl up and going to sleep, or just watching out the window. Sometimes he likes to get in my lap and sit, but I try to limit it unless we’re on a long stretch of highway. So, this freaked me out even more, and we took the next exit for Cove Fort and stopped at the gas station right off the highway. Boreas settled down almost instantly and we got comfy in the parking lot.

One of the problems I was having at this point was that when on the road, my battery held enough power for us to get through the night, but only one night. Then it needed to be recharged during the day. The solar panel was shot (sold to me that way) and the RV dealership was still waiting on the new one to arrive under warranty. So, I could charge the RV battery off the car, when we were driving. It wasn’t long after stopping at the gas station that I could no longer run the furnace. And the snow didn’t seem to be letting up as the sun was rising. So, I went into the gas station to talk to the clerk and get some breakfast to help me decide what to do. I found out that it was a really good thing I pulled of the road. Apparently, just about a mile or so down the road, right after I pulled off the highway, there was an accident. A really, really bad accident. The clerk helped me find Utah’s DOT website for road and weather conditions and reiterated how lucky I was.

Then I started to panic. I wasn’t going to make it to the first day at this job on time. At that point the road was closed, and they said it may be open in about an hour. And then it proceeded to get worse and worse. Because I picked up the job through the Wonolo app they had certain ways you had to call out or cancel a job. There were options to contact the job creators through the app, but there was no guarantee they’d answer back. I ended up canceling the job, and because it was within 12hrs of the start time, they took me off that job for 3 days total. Upsetting, but not the end of the world. The reason I decided to cancel was because I ended up sitting at that gas station for 7 hrs. 6hrs of that spent flipping between the weather app and DOT app. Watching all the roads go from green, to yellow, to red to get to Salt Lake. Each time I’d thought I found a new road through, it was closed. It was a sign. I was not meant to go to Salt Lake, at least not that day. I also couldn’t just sit in this gas station parking lot for ever. Running my car every so often to charge the battery, to run the furnace. I started looking up campgrounds nearby, but everything was out of my budget. The gas station clerk said I could stay as long as I needed. They had a large open parking lot. But I wasn’t about to ask to plug my camper in somewhere. Then I got a call from the RV dealership. My solar panel was finally in. In Grand Junction, CO. Which I realized while on the phone that I-70 connected to this road where this random gas station that I was at. And it was only a 4-hour drive away. (In a car, takes about 6 with the camper… So, I conceded and started heading back to Colorado. Not even 10mins down the road and the snow totally cleared. I still thank Boreas all the time for making me get off the road when we did. Otherwise, we would have been in the middle of that accident. It took them 7hrs to clear that road, opening it back up just when I had decided to go a different direction. I’ll never know how things would have gone differently if I’d tried to keep going to Salt Lake for that job. But that’s how it goes.