The sun keeps trying to elude me, but I won't give up chase. Even when it's sought refuge in the Southwest, in places like New Mexico and Texas that allegedly promise warmth, but in reality still reserve some of their fiercest biting frosts for the evening. It is in these states that I find myself in this next chapter of solo car camping. The 'solo' bit still takes a bit of getting used to, even though I've almost purposefully chosen sparsely populated places where the stars draw out even their most reclusive peers and glow most unabashedly as if trying to fill the entire void of night with light. (By this thinking, the isolation would also allow fewer second encounters with the equally tenacious virus going around.)

But I think I'll forever be dogged by the stateless feelings of airport terminals and checking in to 2-star hotels alone. A traveling salesman's life. Some people would say at least this class of hustlers get to choose the itinerant life, as opposed to it being forced upon them. But it's still a life of always trying to find a groove, a rhythm, in a situation where the time signature changes after every bar, where there are so many people you can get to meet from across so many parts of life but it doesn't matter because they are all faceless. A life where all food, even the ones highly rated on websites, tastes the same when you’re trying to wolf it down in a public car park at night, trying not to draw attention in the driver's seat.

After this family period of adjustment at the start of my trips, I felt a lot better after feeling the scrunch of gravel and an inch of snow beneath by chewed up sneakers. And I soon found a beat I could dance to, under the glinting clouds and rusted dust of the high desert in winter. Despite an early coughing fit of snow followed by a blinding snowstorm that forced me to pull off the side of the road for a night, the rest of the trip delivered the sun I long sought. From the caverns in Carlsbad to the canyons of Big Bend, I reminded myself that enjoying solitude in nature is edifying and crucial to one's well being. 

At the start of the trip, I thought that this would be my last in a while; I thought I'd scratched the travel itch well and good. Smelling like stale sweat for weeks and the anxiety of finding a parking spot to lay low for the night can get old reeeaaal quick. But that itch is a persistent little ache, and I think I have the appetite for just one more, and see how hard I can pursue the sun. I'm sure it's actually egging me to.