By Aaron Gulley, Outside

In these days of constant work and connection, taking time to do nothing is one of the most difficult agenda items. But it’s more important than ever.

In Artemis, our Airstream, Jen and I have put thousands of miles of road beneath us since August, crisscrossing the Rockies again and again. We never planned to travel so much, but engagements kept arising that we couldn’t pass up and before we knew it we were ping-ponging from place to place with nary a down day. This breaks one of my cardinal rules of Airstreaming—go slow—but we all know that, once we’re spun up, Newton’s first law is difficult to combat. 

Thinking back a year and a half to when we began this life on the road, we were full of hope for simplicity, slowing down, and more time outdoors. We’ve enjoyed plenty of that and found lots of remote office campsites in national forests across Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado. But I’m also amazed at how quickly road life can accelerate out of control. Between meeting up with friends in half a dozen distant spots to camp, appointments for service on Artemis, trade shows and other work opportunities such as testing the new Basecamp, and a few travel assignments thrown in, I’ve felt like road life has been just as harried as when I’m at home—perhaps more so with the trailer to manage. Too many nights this fall, after full days of travel and logistics, I’ve found myself at the computer until 3am to get through my To Do list.

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