My husband, Jason, and I set off on a cool day in March, almost five months to the day before I will give birth, with a loose sketch of a route that will take us from our home in southeastern Washington through five states in eight days. It will be our last big trip as a childless couple and probably the last chance we’ll get in a while to enjoy some good hiking.
For us, the trail is where we connect best. I fell in love with Jason while hiking, and right after marrying, we deepened our bond on a thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail. We are both looking forward to taking a break from preparing for the baby to savor that connection one more time.
Exploring Utah
From Walla Walla we drive the entire day through Salt Lake City, Utah, and on to Moab, just outside of Arches National Park. I buy a soft plush jack rabbit at the Moab Information Center in the mountain-biker-chic downtown. The rabbit, a gift for our baby-to-be, will accompany us on the rest of our journey.
We set up our tent under a sandstone precipice at one of several Bureau of Land Management (BLM) campsites along the Colorado River, away from the crowds of Arches but no less stunning. We watch the falling sunset – the pink-orange canyon walls ablaze – until the shadows of the mesas behind us swallow them up.
Huddled by the campfire, we talk about what our baby might be like. Will she enjoy camping and hiking as much as we do? What can we do to help foster our love of nature within her?
The next day, we get up early to claim a spot in the long line of cars snaking into Arches. During our short hike, the stuffed jack rabbit’s shiny black eyes peek out of Jason’s backpack as we walk on red dirt trails and under the park’s sandstone arches, dusted lightly with spring snow.
In the afternoon, we ditch the crowds for the less traveled Canyonlands National Park, stopping on the way at Newspaper Rock State Historical Monument to see one of the largest collections of petroglyphs in the country – hundreds of rock carvings of humans, animals and symbols telling a story that began more than 2,000 years ago (when it’s estimated the first carvings were made).
Then, we drive south into the remote Needles District, named after its Cedar Mesa Sandstone spires.
Follow along with our Roadtripper’s guide!
With a bright sun warming up the day, we set out on Slickrock Foot Trail for what would typically be an easy out-and-back hike for us. Jason takes the rock stairs in leaps and bounds while I gingerly pick my way up them, exploring my new pregnancy limitations.
Before we reach the trail’s end, I need to turn around. My body is reminding me I’m pregnant, which means I’m tired, hungry, thirsty, a little achy and hot. Through my own veil of disappointment, I watch Jason try to hide his eagerness to continue. He reminds me that my low stamina is only temporary; I won’t be pregnant forever.
That night, those feelings are erased by a view of the boundless sea of stars smattered across the open night sky at Hamburger Rock Campground, another BLM gem just outside park bounds. We devour campfire burgers and talk more about what we hope our new family will look like.
Exploring Arizona
Sedona, Arizona, is our next destination. But on the way, we do a driving tour of the Southwest’s greatest hits: the San Juan River’s horseshoe curves at Goosenecks State Park, Arizona’s towering Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon.
That evening we roll into Williams, a little town where the desert’s rugged cowboy history lives on. We hit up Rod’s Steak House, whose neon cow-shaped sign has been luring Route 66 motorists since 1946.
The first time I drove into Sedona years before, I felt an immediate connection. Whether I was sucked into its purported vortexes, those swirls of healing energy spiritual seekers claim to feel here, or simply awed by its red, velvety beauty is hard to say.
Now, with the new weight of pregnancy worries on me – ranging from What should I put on my registry? to Will my baby be healthy? – I am in even greater need of the calm this place provides.
We park at the crowded Bell Rock trailhead overflow parking and begin to walk. It’s a warm day, so I go slow. I crouch to run my fingers through the trail’s pink sand, which brings me back to the last time I was here celebrating my 30th birthday: single, independent, carefree.
As I make the meditative walk up the bell-shaped sandstone formation and lounge like a sunning lizard on its warm ledges, I feel a grounding that was missing then and a sudden deepening of the connection to my unborn daughter. I whisper to her that I will take her here someday and show her this amazing view. I can’t wait to meet her. I take a panoramic photo that will later accompany me to the delivery room to help me breathe through the pain.
Exploring California
The next day’s trip into Death Valley, California, is all about pure joy, giving in to the sense of wonder as we drive through the pastel hills of the Artists Palette. We laugh until my cheeks hurt at the surprise of knock-me-over winds on the salt flats of Badwater Basin, North America’s lowest point at 282 feet below sea level.
The Mojave Desert becomes even more otherworldly two hours south of the park in Baker. We check the temperature on the World’s Tallest Thermometer and stop for a snack at the spaceship-shaped Alien Fresh Jerky® store.
Then we say goodbye to this arid alternate universe and climb north again to the little town of Bishop, tucked between the Sierra Nevada and White Mountains in Owens Valley. In close proximity to the more popular Mammoth Lakes and Yosemite National Park, it’s more of a drive-by rather than a destination for most. But for us, it holds the memory of our Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike when we got off there to resupply and take a day of rest.
We eat at the same barbecue joint, Holy Smoke Texas Style BBQ, then we check into the same cheap hotel and spend a quiet night reflecting on the arc our life has made, now on the precipice of settling down that the PCT once sheltered us from.
I complain about not being able to get in the hot tub, another pregnancy no-no. Jason reminds me that, back then, it wasn’t that clean anyway. We laugh, remembering how dirty we were on the PCT trip – our clothes still stinking of sweat even after washing, our feet still stained with sneaker-penetrating grime even after two showers. We tell ourselves we want our daughter to get that dirty, too, someday.
Exploring Oregon
After booking it up through the center of Nevada and into Oregon, we have one more day of play in John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. We hike the short yet gratifying Blue Basin trail in the Sheep Rock, one of the monument’s three units.
Losing ourselves in its cerulean drip-castle landscape is like one last exhale before the trip’s end, where we will return home and set jack rabbit, red dust still on paws, onto the carpet of an empty sunlit nursery. I later place the photos we took of the plush rabbit posed at vistas in our baby album alongside my sonograms.
Over the next few years, our daughter will teach us that we don’t need to hike long distances to enjoy the outdoors, as we share in her amazement of a forest floor, collecting leaves and acorns and teaching her the names of wildflowers.
Today, I like to flip through the pages of that baby album with her, my now 3-year-old, showing her a Where’s Waldo-style picture of her stuffed rabbit blending into a fur-colored canyon. Last time we did this, she pointed to my belly in the pictures of me and asked if she’s in there. I don’t know how much she grasps of the stories I tell her, but I do know she already has an understanding of adventure and the call of the trail.
