If dry camping gets you one degree closer to nature, boon docking takes it even further. We plant ourselves on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land or dispersed camping in national forests – these are “sites” you don’t pay for but also lack water access, restrooms, and even designated “spots.” You can’t reserve anything, there’s no way to be sure the quality of the roads, and in Townes’s words, “oh, so we just pull over off the side of the road?”

Our attention to logistics (water, solar/electricity, and propane) is heightened but in a spot without any shade and our days being 100% sunshine, we had little to fret over – our electricity stayed strong enough to enjoy some heat in the morning and some tunes in the afternoon.

We boondocked on Lizard Head Pass and had a lovely time. In life’s previous season, I had a hard time unwinding and truly finding rest. Boondocking, in this specific instance, felt like a source of rest. We didn’t have access to technology, we didn’t have activities/park facilities to walk to. We just had an entire day to sit, be together, let our minds wander, and simplify.

There is something I favor about this San Juan Mountain Range. They seem to be where the desert southwest collided with the Rocky Mountains. The mountains are craggy and inconsistent, less so the perfect repeating points. They are colorful – you can see mud reds and even blues. The layers of earth are visible in the mountainsides, revealing the millions of years of formation.

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