Why We Keep Coming Back

It starts weeks out. Somebody sends a date. Nobody commits, exactly, but the group chat starts moving and within four days there's a list of who's driving what and an argument about departure time that will be relitigated three more times.

Then the drive down, which is half the fun and nobody admits it. Border, then the long stretch where the phone gives up, then that first turn off the pavement where the tires go quiet and everybody in the cab sits up a little.

There's a specific stretch of the first morning that we're all actually here for. The road opens up, the light is still low and gold, nobody's overheating yet, and the truck settles into a rhythm where you stop steering and start aiming. It lasts maybe fifteen minutes and it recalibrates your whole year.

The other reason is the people. Off-road attracts an unreasonable number of genuinely good ones. Strangers stop when you're broken down. Somebody you met an hour ago lends you a tool they need. A guy with a real program helps a privateer with a spare part because it's Tuesday and he had one.

And the finish. Not just crossing something — the end of any hard day. Ocean air finally cool, everything beige, the sunburn showing up. Somebody's telling the story of the sketchy bit, and it's already three times better than what actually happened, and nobody's correcting them.

Then you unload, and something's broken, and you look at what it'll cost, and you know exactly what you're going to say next. So — March?