RILEY J ROAMS

The 14-or-so-hour drive from Chicago to Colorado features corn, rolling grasslands, and more corn. I’ve taken two different routes to complete this drive: stopping in Kansas City then going through Kansas or booking it through Iowa and Nebraska. Going to Kansas City adds on a few hours, but stopping in the cute country town with…

I’ve always dreaded growing old until I spent time in the Pacific Northwest. There’s something about the lush remoteness that made me excited to settle down in a little house with a big garden and a few goats. Being surrounded by muggy fog next to the ocean had me dreaming about the future—setting goals and…

My time here is ending before it even started. I moved to Chicago on the first of March—three weeks before the whole world shut down. I received a full-time job offer right after I moved, but it was cancelled due to the lockdown. So I was quarantining in a new apartment with new roommates in…

Back in 2015 it was difficult to find Horseshoe Bend Overlook. I drove to Page, Arizona with my family, and we parked our car along the shoulder of U.S. 89. We hiked up the Navajo sandstone for 1.5 miles until reaching the steep drop off with a view of the canyon outlined with a 270-degree…

Winter came in the form of chilling wind howling through the desert and homesickness for familiar faces and places. Molly and I packed our cars in preparation for another cross-country road trip in much different weather conditions. Sunday, December 1, 2019: Yucca Valley, CA – Death Valley National Park, CA Snow-covered mountains towered in the…