In April of 2017, I drove across the United States alone because I was moving from my parents’ home in Northern Virginia to a farm in Southern Oregon where I would work as an intern for the season. I’d always wanted to drive cross-country and stop and see a bunch of sights, you know, the Great American Roadtrip, but I just didn’t have the money for that. So I limited trip to 6 days, decided on the northern route, and I picked out a few attractions I thought I’d have time to explore. I bought a lot of snacks and camping food on clearance at a local Safeway that was going out of business and I planned to camp at parks and campgrounds and cook my own food at rest areas to save money on motels and restaurants.
The first day, I took on an epic feat- I drove from Alexandria, Virginia to Chicago in one day. I hadn’t originally planned on it, but I had friends in Chicago I could stay with and I’d been making good time, so I decided to go for it. It was about a 12-hour day of driving and I arrived at their place around 9pm. We had a short visit, but a visit just the same and I left early the next morning.
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| The open road in Wyoming |
On day two, my plan was to drive until about an hour before dark and then start looking for a place to spend the night. I’d seen signs for campgrounds on nearly every exit sign, so there didn’t seem to be a shortage of places to stay.
About an hour before dark, I saw a sign for a campground in a small town in Minnesota, so I took the exit to check it out. The problem was that I couldn’t find it. The sign off of the exit pointed in one direction, but once I headed down that road, there wasn’t a second sign to direct me. I saw an elderly man out in his front yard, and thought I’d pull up and ask him. So I pulled up, rolled my window down, got his attention and asked if he knew where the such and such campground was. He told me he didn’t know and that he’d go get his wife because she was better at this kind of thing. So his wife came out, a plump woman with curly gray hair and glasses, and I asked her if she knew where the campground was and she asked me what I wanted to do there. I explained that I was driving cross-country and was looking for a place to stay for the night.
“You gonna sleep in your car?” she asked me.
“Oh no, I have a tent,” I said. My car was packed to the brim with my possessions; it was impossible to sleep in there.
“Now how old are you?”she said, kind of turning her head to the side and then forward again.
“I’m 35,” I said.
“Well listen. I’ve got granddaughters your age and I wouldn’t let them stay at that place. That’s how you get knocked off.”
Knocked off? Like… knocked off the planet? Was she actually suggesting that I might get murdered if I camped at that campground? Could it really be that dangerous? This seemed like a quaint little town. Are there really serial killers hanging about the campground waiting for solo female travelers to stop in so that they can have their way with them?
I am not the sort of female to scare easily, especially when the risk seems low. But what could I do? This woman was not going to give me directions to the campground and directed me instead to the next town, about 20 miles down the highway where I could get a safe motel room.
So I set off down the highway as the sun was getting low in the sky, still determined to camp for the night, just not in that town. This was exactly what I was trying to avoid- still being on the road at dark without knowing where I was going to stay for the night. I scrolled through lodging options on my GPS and saw that there was a state park at the next exit. It was a little far off the highway, but I decided to check it out. The office was already closed when I arrived, but after reading the info, it seemed that it was open for camping even though it was still early in the season. The restrooms and water were still shut off for winter, which was kind of a bummer, but I had enough water, so I drove around and found myself a nice campsite near a boggy area. There was not a single other soul at the campground, but that really didn’t bother me. There was a main road not too far off and I could see the traffic in the distance and there were a few homes between the park and the road, so I was by no means isolated, but it was still quiet and peaceful.
Then it hit me. Clearly it was someone who was driving around to see if there were any solo campers staying the night in the park. They saw me, made a mental note of it, and were planning to come back later to kill me in my sleep. Duh.
I mentioned before that I am not a paranoid woman. I don’t like to waste my time worrying about things that are not likely to happen. At that point in my life, I’d traveled to numerous foreign countries on my own. I’d been hiking, trail running, camping and backpacking alone. I’d just spent a year traveling around a whole foreign continent by myself. I’d been called “brave” by many and “a badass” by a select few.
And yet… I couldn’t shake my fear that night. I’d had two long days of driving, so was pretty sleep deprived. And as much as I didn’t want her to, I’d let that dang woman in the previous town get into my head!
I decided to put only the essentials- my sleeping pad, sleeping bag and pillow in my tent and leave everything else in my car so that if I had to make a quick getaway, I’d only be leaving a few things behind. I got into my tent to go to sleep, but I would sit up at the smallest noise and look outside shining my flashlight around to make sure nothing was lurking about. I clutched my car keys with one hand and my pepper spray with the other while I tried to sleep. A few times, I got out of my tent and sprinted to my car, convinced I’d heard a car approaching. I tried to sleep in the drivers’ seat of my compact Ford Fiesta, but my car was so full with my possessions that I couldn’t recline the seat very far. So I’d try that for a bit, then I’d convince myself everything was OK and go back to my tent. Then I’d hear something and run back to my car again. At one point, around 4am or so, I actually started up my car and drove out of the park, down the road that leads from the park to the main road, then turned around and came back. Just checking things out, letting my potential attackers know that I was watching, I was alert and ready to… well, flee.
It was insanity. Finally, as the morning light was creeping in, I was able to get an hour or two of sleep before I figured I needed to get up and start driving.
As I drove that day and reflected on the events of the previous night, I thought, WTF is wrong with me? Had I lost my mind? I was never in any danger. Who knows why that car drove through the park just after sunset, but also, what motivation would that individual have to return later and attack me? It sure would be a dumb move as they gave me sufficient time to take stock of their make, model, car color and license plate number and call the police. Wouldn’t a serial killer be a little bit sneakier?
I decided to stay in motels the next three nights of my trip. I didn’t want to give in to irrational fears of being murdered in a campground, but I didn’t want to fall asleep at the wheel and crash my car either. Getting a good night's sleep when you’re going to be driving all day by yourself is pretty crucial.
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| Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota |
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| Badlands National Park |
I know that the world is a scary and dangerous place for women. I know that we are more often victims of violent crime such as rape, murder and kidnapping than men. I know that we get trafficked across borders, locked up in basements and tortured for years, unbeknownst to the outside world. We may get sexually assaulted at rest stops. And maybe, once in a while, one of us gets “knocked off” at a campground.
I know that a lone woman is an easy target.
And I know that a lot of women wouldn’t travel or go on adventures alone because of the fear of any of these things. And I get it, why risk it? Why put yourself out there, why be vulnerable? Why not just stay at home or find a travel partner to go with you on every adventure you want to go on?
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| Oregon border at Highway 140 |
And yet, I’m afraid that if we do that; if we don’t put ourselves out there and show the world that we are not afraid; that we are actually strong and capable, nothing will change. What if women traveled alone en mass and were never victimized? What if women camped out in state parks on their own and didn’t get hurt by anyone? What if, instead of survivor stories, we just had stories?
Some might say that there’s a reason I felt fear that night in the park. Maybe something was lurking about and there’s a reason I stayed alert, like I felt some danger subconsciously. I think that when you’re sleep-deprived and alone in the woods and it’s dark, it’s very easy for your mind to play tricks on you. I think that when someone says something completely preposterous like, “That’s how you get knocked off!” and you’re like, yeah right, that lady is being ridiculous and you really, really don’t want to let it bother you, it can.
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| Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah |
About 6 months after this, I took a little weekend trip to the redwoods and the Oregon coast by myself. I stopped in at the visitors’ center at Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park to get some info about campgrounds and an older gentleman was lingering around while the female park ranger gave me some info about what to see and where to stay in the park. After I got the info and brochures from her, I was looking at postcards and the man came over and said to me, “You’ve gotta be careful in here.”
“Oh?” I said.
And he proceeded to tell me about all the hooligans and thieves in the Redwood Forest, which is pretty humorous to me because I’m from DC and I used to live in a neighborhood where there were drive-bys, burglaries and even brothel busts. At any rate, he lectured me about not leaving my possessions in plain sight when I locked my car and etc. I thanked him for the tips and when I was leaving he said, “And do you have a man with you? ‘Cause that helps.”
My blood boiled at the suggestion that I needed a man to be safe, but I calmly said, “I think I’ll be all right,” and walked out the door.
That night, I camped by myself on the beach at a campground in Nor Cal, and I was just fine.
