by Eric Schenck
Back in December of 2022, I was on top of the world. I was introducing my entire family to my girlfriend, and we were just weeks away from the trip of a lifetime:
Driving our newly bought camper van all the way from Texas to Panama and back again
Life was good.
But how fast things can change.
What this trip was supposed to be:
- 8+ months with my girlfriend, doing a loop of central America, and being that “cool couple” you see on Instagram.
What it actually end up being:
- Three weeks by myself, driving to a few national parks in the U.S., and trying to avoid any kind of traffic accident.
Nina and I had been fighting for about six months before we started the ill-fated trip. I know we were on shaky ground. So did she.
But after purchasing a $15,000 vehicle together, there was some kind of desperation to make it work. So that’s what we did.
We promised each other we would try, that we weren’t going to let some bickering get in the way of an adventure.
But alas – no such luck.
She broke up with me a few weeks after Christmas. We were still in Texas, and hadn’t even started our trip United States.
Which left me-
Alone.
Well, not quite. I still had a 24-foot, 12,000 pound vehicle on my hands. At first I was planning on selling it immediately. At that point, anything that was going to remind me of my ex-girlfriend needed to be thrown in a trash can.
But what a waste. I had spent the last six months watching hundreds of YouTube videos. At this point, I knew everything there was to know about traveling (and living) in a camper van.
So-
Adventure time. Not quite the adventure I was planning-
But the best ones never are.
I only ended up going to two separate places. But for me at the time, that was plenty.
Hot Springs National Park (Arkansas)
Pretty but depressing. But a few weeks after a breakup, pretty much anywhere would have felt the same.
Great hiking, and a convenient size: out of 63 official U.S. national parks, Hot Springs is the second smallest. On my fist rodeo with a camper van, it felt manageable.
Big Bend National Park (Texas)
Big Bend was an entirely different thing. Going here after Hot Springs felt like somebody grabbed the trees and hiking paths and stretched them out. The sky is so big here that it takes any problem you might have and swallows it. It makes you feel small. But it also makes anything you’re going through feel small.
For me that was a good thing. Small is manageable. Big Bend was where I started to move on from Nina.
After five straight days of 25+ miles hikes, Margarita had given me what I needed.
Fresh air, a bit of adventure, and a healthy dose of moving on with my life.
I finally sold my camper van. A nice girl named Jacquelynn ended up taking Margarita off my hands. It took long enough, and a lot of Facebook messages from people that clearly weren’t serious, but eventually I found a buyer.
It was weird watching Jacquelynn drive away that day. I had planned to be using Margarita for at least another seven months. But that didn’t pan out, and what had started as a giant trip in theory, shrunk to a fraction of that in reality.
Of course, there is one big thing that I learned from the whole experience:
Big decisions and young relationships don’t mix well.
Nina and I hadn’t been together that long, and we were already having arguments. In our delusional optimism we thought some giant trip in a camper van might strengthen our bond. But there was no foundation to build on. Margarita just made an already dysfunctional relationship worse.
The frustrating thing about these “life lessons” is that the only ones that actually stick are the ones you have to live through yourself. That sucks. I would have much preferred to read about this stuff in a book.
But hey – at least now I’ll actually remember it.
The three weeks that I got Margarita to myself were pretty fun. A bit sad, sure. But needed.
And for what it’s worth-
I can now cross a few more national parks off my list!
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