Eight: August/Septebmer 2018

ROVA

The magazine for epic road trips

ROVA2 min read
From The Editor
If you’re not discovering something on a road trip, you might be doing it wrong. Virtually the only way to not make a discovery on the road is if you drive with your eyes closed and earplugs in, which no road safety expert would ever recommend. Disco
ROVA1 min read
Rova In Your Words
My wife and I have all of the ROVA Adventures, and even at 58 and 62 we are young at heart and love the inspiring adventures. We had a camper when our girls were growing up, and I admit that ROVA inspired us to recently purchase a new camper and star
ROVA2 min read
Why The Road?
My mind had become a place I didn’t recognize anymore. Unhappiness and fear had arrived as a manifestation of my younger self’s expectations. Being on the road, alone, is my way of releasing the chokehold that had been on my life for the past few yea
ROVA4 min read
Three Days In The Desert
We were in a part of California that no one talks about—miles from the ocean, far from picturesque—when our ignition blew. We’d been driving through massive fields of CAFO feedlots and Driscoll’s strawberries. It smelled like cow dung for miles, and
ROVA2 min read
Rova Recommends
It takes someone with a lot of grit and heart, and perhaps a generous helping of insanity, to attempt to break the world speed record for thru-hiking the 2,160-mile Appalachian Trail. Made to be Broken, the documentary of Karl Meltzer’s third—and fir
ROVA4 min read
Penny-pinching On The Road
Living out on the road is a lot like normal life—except much, much cooler. Despite your newfound surplus of cool, some old, familiar problems will inevitably stalk your life on four wheels. Household economics is one of them. The difference between h
ROVA11 min read
Full-time Families
When I was eight years old, my parents took me and my sisters (then aged 10 and three) out of school, and we trundled around Australia for four months, towing a Jayco Songbird behind us. Memories from the rest of my childhood all blur together—school
ROVA6 min read
Dine And Dash Diner Culture And Road-tripping
Put a piece of pie in front of me, and I’m instantly happy. Make that pie à la mode, pair it with a vinyl booth, some cheesy American tunes, and a crapload of Formica and neon, and you’re guaranteed to get me out of even the deepest funk. If you don’
ROVA4 min readAstronomy & Space Sciences
Under North America’s Darkest Skies
The vast night sky looms above me, and I feel small. Millions of light-years up there, masses of stars twinkle in the moonless dark; the marvelous Milky Way is a shimmering smudge at the zenith of the atmosphere. And while I gaze in amazement at the
ROVA4 min read
A Life-changing Road Trip To Bonnaroo
If it’s a cliché to say that a trip changed my life, then I guess this story is a cliché. This road trip did change my life—irrevocably so. The trip wasn’t glamorous. Hell, it wasn’t even that far from home. But the experience was so profound that it
ROVA7 min read
Gimme Some Space
They don’t call it tiny living for no reason—despite having the enormity of the outdoors just beyond the walls of our adventuremobiles, the inside space that we RVers have is rather puny. Attaining the feeling of space in pint-sized confines is surel
ROVA2 min read
White Sands National Monument
The dunes at White Sands National Monument, outside Alamogordo, New Mexico, aren’t formidable. At around 60 feet tall, they don’t cause a quick gasp of breath the way much larger ones, such as those in the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Oregon Sa
ROVA7 min readEarth Sciences
A Tale Of Two Lakes
I remember hearing about this accidental inland sea. It was the result of an attempt in the early 20th century to irrigate the desert, which went awry when a poorly built canal failed. The water that gushed out made its way into the enormous Salton B
ROVA5 min read
Wining, Dining And Good-timing In Grand Junction
Colorado is big-adventure country, where there are more 14ers than you can throw a trail marker at. But Grand Junction, on the state’s far western edge, is often overlooked as an adventure destination. Instead, it gets top billing for its wine countr
ROVA6 min read
Two Sides Of Tucson
When I found myself standing in front of a giant saguaro cactus for the first time, I felt this quiet sense of achievement. There’s always been something about those “big spiky bastards,” as Kane Grose called them in a recent poem for ROVA, that intr
ROVA4 min read
Beyond The Door
Beyond Door County’s abundance of classic Wisconsin flavor, outdoor activities, and wine and cheese sampling lies a remote gem—a place that’s difficult enough to reach that some tourists won’t even bother. I’m not talking about Washington Island, at
ROVA4 min read
Kickin’ It In Kentucky
Aroad trip through Kentucky brings travelers Appalachian Mountain views, bluegrass beats and “hollers” in the rolling green hills—the latter falsely rumored to be named after the way neighbors spoke to one another before phones. (You’d just holler!)
ROVA3 min read
The Poconos: A Land For Explorers
The 77,000-acre Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area is the region’s crowning jewel. Only 90 minutes from New York City and two hours from Philadelphia, DeWa, as it is known by locals, is a soul-soothing oasis amid the hustle and bustle of its

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