Vanlife Misadventure: Near Death in New Mexico

Just so you’re up to speed, my name’s Alia, and this is my secret travel journal. I’m a 20-something American girl living in my self-converted shuttle bus (check out my origin story here: PART 1 + PART 2). This is where I share it all—the hilariously embarrassing truth about my adventures. This time, a Vanlife Misadventure: Near Death in New Mexico on my way to a hot spring. That’s really all you need to know. Now, go on, step inside… Welcome to the mayhem.

Death?

Up until this moment, I wasn’t afraid of death. Actually, if given the choice between death and something like losing a limb or being paralyzed—unable to live life the way I wanted—I would’ve picked death. No hesitation. Honest to Lizzo, the idea of dying didn’t scare me. If I died, then I’d either move on to the next life or disappear into nothingness. And if I was nothing, I wouldn’t feel a damn thing. So, what was there to be afraid of?

That was, until I really, truly almost died.

You know how when life throws some real bullshit your way, you don’t tell your parents or friends about it until way after the fact? And when you do tell them, you make jokes to soften the blow? Yeah, well, I still haven’t told my parents the full story about this day. Because I don’t think there are enough giggles in the world to soften this one.

So, sorry Mom and Pops, that this is how you’re finding out about the day I genuinely thought I was going to die.

New Mexico’s “Must-See”

My aunt and uncle gave me a list of cool things to do in New Mexico and Arizona, as they used to live in the area. One of those things was to visit the Gila Hot Springs, located on the top of Gila Mountain, NM. I’m a slut for anything water related, especially a natural hot spring, so off I went.

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made.

I’m sure if I had told my aunt and uncle about the issues I’d been aggressively ignoring with the bus, they probably would have advised I don’t try to take it up a mountain.

But alas, I was quiet and stupid and in a trance over the idea of natural hot springs in the sky! No one could have warned me because no one knew what I was brushing off as “not a big deal” — the slow leaks, the slight drag on my brakes, the tiny struggle my engine would hint at when going up a hilly road — all minor details in my mind.

If Busalitos could talk, she’d curse me up and down.

Breaking My Own Rules

I woke up early in the morning and made my way over to Silver Springs, the town directly at the bottom of Gila Mountain. I figured I could find a cute coffee shop and get some work done before driving up. There was no wifi or cell service on the mountain and I’d be spending the night there.

Now Friends, I swear I’m not always willy-nilly reckless out there on the road — I have safety rules. They include things like filling up my water tank when it gets to a certain mid-point, sleeping with my handy-dandy pepper spray and car keys hidden next to my bed, and NEVER spending the night in a location with zero cell service.

Why I decided to break that last rule this time around is beyond me. Maybe it was because the mountaintop location was recommended to me by loved-ones, so I assumed it would be safe? But even if it’s a safe-feeling location, that doesn’t mean things wouldn’t go wrong.

And girl, did they go wrong…

The Hottie Wants You To Fuck Right Off

When I got to Silver Springs, it felt pretty deserted. I chalked that up to it being decently early in the morning (9am is definitely early if you’re me). But, the coffee shop I found was artsy and poppin, locals zipping in and out, and the breakfast quiche was divine. I was feeling pretty good about the place and the day when I left the coffee shop around noon.

That’s when things took a yucky turn.

Walking on the street back to the bus, I came up on a group of four men huddled together on the sidewalk. “Ooo, make way for the hottie,” one of them cooed as I passed. I had to walk right through their group to get by, and being in the center of all their invasive stares made my skin crawl.

Giving an uncomfortable, flat smile, I picked up the pace. I could see the bus from there, reassuring myself that I was almost home.

The men stayed where they were, so by the time I got to the bus, I felt confident that they weren’t going to pull anything sketchy. So, I decided to check the bus’s fluid levels.

Blame Men

I had been parked for the morning and I wanted to see if the bus had leaked anything major in that time period. I knew she had some leaks, and I had been topping off the oil and coolant pretty regularly, but I didn’t know how badly she was struggling.

As I bent down to check for puddles underneath her, I heard a catcall whistle from across the street. I whipped my head towards the sound and saw a man watching me on the opposite sidewalk. He was swaying on his feet, just a little bit unstable, and I could see the slightly crazed look in his eyes from there.

That’s it. Rushing to the driver’s side door and hopping in, I clicked the locks down immediately.

I didn’t get a chance to see if there were puddles under the bus, but thinking about it now, there were probably ponds.

I say all this because I’d like to think that if I saw how badly the bus was leaking in that moment, if I hadn’t been distracted by the gross feeling of creepy men around me, and if I hadn’t had the urge to book it out of that place as fast as possible, I would have seen the damage and made the call to not trek up a mountain.

…Basically, I’d like to blame all of the following trauma on men. Thank you very much.

Red Flags Waving in the Mountain Breeze

I put Gila Hot Springs in my GPS and started driving.

40 minutes, cool. I thought, looking at the ETA.

That gave me enough time to spend the afternoon in the glorious hot springs before settling in at the campground up there. Then I’d wake up early in the morning and drive back down, off to something else on the list. It didn’t matter there wasn’t cell service on the mountain, I’d be in and out in no time!

I very quickly became aware that the bus was not okay. And not just in the small ways I already knew.

The bus lurched and wheezed going up the small hills at the base of the mountain. Each time I pressed the brakes, they groaned like they were being personally attacked. After about 30 minutes of driving on the unkept, dirt road and only a quarter of the way up the mountain, I stopped to see what I could do.

I popped the hood and checked the oil and coolant levels. Both low, so I filled them up again. This was pretty worrisome considering I filled them up the day before. I also checked the transmission fluid level, although I wasn’t convinced I was doing it right. Are you supposed to check it with the engine on or off? I’m still not sure, honestly. The dipstick signaled that the transmission fluid was full, but I didn’t trust it considering the engine was struggling to go up hills. So I put more in…

Then, in classic me fashion, I shrugged and decided there was nothing more I could do.

I simply got back in the bus and kept going.

The Grease Bomb

The further I went, the more alarming the situation became.

The road turned from kind of hilly to straight-up dangerous. The curves sharpened into hairpins that seemed designed by a four-year-old with a crayon. I found myself braking hard into downhill bends, praying my brakes would do their job in time. The scent of burning metal filled the bus, mixing with the pine from outside and my own sweat.

I spent the next hour like that, body on high alert, rigid in my seat.

Finally, I spotted a pull-off and yanked us over, breathing so hard you’d have thought hiked my way up. I checked the GPS: only halfway there.

What the fuck, mountain? End, please!

I slunk out of the bus and opened the hood again. My eyes widened in horror at the sight.

It was like a grease bomb exploded in there. Oil was everywhere. It coated everything, every scrap of metal, every nozzle and cap, even the battery held a blanket of grease. Not a good sign.

Doubt and fear flooded my brain. Should I turn back?

But the thought of driving down that same road again made my stomach churn. What’s that saying? The hills are flatter on the other side of the mountain? Right?

Help? Who is she?

Suddenly a small, white convertible pulled up next to me. There was a man and woman inside, kind smiles on their faces. The guy pointed to the propped hood of the bus and asked, “Hey, are you okay?”

For a moment, I contemplated what the truth would sound like: “Hi, strangers! No, sir-eee, I’m scared shitless but thanks for asking! My bus is leaking profusely and the brakes feel weak, and I knew about those issues before but it wasn’t nearly this bad. Still, I only have myself to blame, and now I don’t know what to do because going back down that road is my nightmare and there’s nothing you can do because neither of us has cell service to call for help, and if I’m being honest that polo shirt you’re wearing doesn’t scream ‘I’m-a-car-mechanic-and-am-willing-to-get-insanely-oil-splattered-for-a-foolish-human-girl’ so I’m not sure why you’re asking, but that was very nice of you anyways!”

Yeah, no, not saying that.

Instead, I slapped on my biggest smile and said, “Oh yeah, I’m fine! Just wanted to top her off. Thanks so much!”

They smiled and drove away with an almost regal wave of the wrist.

My biggest trauma response: not asking for help. Even, turns out, when I could desperately use it. This is something I’ve come to learn about myself through my travels. Call it independent-woman syndrome or, more probably, childhood trauma manifesting in the form of “I don’t want to be a bother,” – whatever! But there, on that mountain, it tried to kill me.

The thought of driving down that same road again was so horrendous, I decided to keep going. Does that make any sense, considering I was going to have to drive that same road again, and more, on the way back?

No, no sense was made the entire trip, clearly.

I deemed there was nothing more I could do, put the campsite in my GPS instead of the hot springs (’cause there was no way I was going for a casual swim at this point) and got back in the bus.

On the Brink, In Every Way Imaginable

I was chanting out loud to myself: “Almost there, almost there, don’t worry, almost there.” (I wasn’t’ almost there.)

And the bus was deteriorating fast – faster than I could say “fuck me.”

The road had gone from dangerous to treacherous, with even sharper curves at the bottoms of steeper hills. The brakes began to make an ungodly noise, like metal grating on metal or a velociraptor’s screech. Each turn revealed a terrifying view—a sheer drop into tree limbs hundreds of feet below looking like tiny broccoli florets.

I was on a roller coaster ticking my way up to the climax, unable to see what was on the other side, then tipping over the top revealing a dizzying decline. Then momentum pulled me down to run face-first into a sharp U-turn that I prayed I could follow. This particular rollercoaster was broken and I was the one controlling it. And if I messed up, I legit, flat-out flew off a cliff and died.

My back was a wooden plank behind me. I could see the whites of my knuckles as I gripped the steering wheel, my palms sticky with sweat against the leather. Anxiety had a grip on my lungs making me hyperventilate with each jerky turn away from the cliffside. I had so little control. I could feel the bus giving into her wounds, and once she gave out, I was done.

The “Dramatic Imagination” Part, I Suppose (you’ll see what I’m referring too)…

My mind drifted between fits of hysteria.

I pictured scenarios where the bus’s brakes completely stopped working on a downhill turn, and I had to jump out of the driver’s side door to safety as it flew off the cliffside. Would I have time to grab my backpack before I jumped, to save my computer with my entire business on it? Or would I lose my home and my livelihood in one fell swoop? Would I at least be able to grab my phone before I jumped and then somehow walk to a place with service to call 911? If I could even walk.

I pictured purposefully swerving the bus into the side of the mountain to keep it from flying off the cliff, totaling the bus. My face would be bloody, sagging over the steering wheel, and it’d be impossible to move or call for help as I bled out slowly.

I pictured flying off the cliff with my bus, a captain going down with her ship, suspended in free fall and then tumbling over and over through the mountain trees. If I was still alive by the time the bus stopped rolling, I imagined myself rationing the food I could scavenge from the wreckage and hiking through the woods with a limp and a shirt tied around my red, dripping forehead. And if I didn’t survive my hunt for civilization, collapsing somewhere in the woods, the police would be looking in all the wrong places for me, and my family would never know what happened to me. They would never find the body.

Oh my god, my family.

A deep sorrow settled in next to the panic, realizing that “no service” meant I couldn’t even call them and say my last words.

(I never said I wasn’t extra as hell, people.)

Worth It? Hell Freaking NO.

By some miracle, I pulled into the campsite just as the sun was setting. To say I was a wreck was an understatement.

After five hours up a mountain that should have taken 40 minutes, and thinking I was going to die most of the way, my mind, body, and soul were destroyed. The adrenaline that had been keeping me together now had me jumpy and tweaking.

I got out of the bus and paced for a moment, walking to the cliffside in hopes of seeing some sort of beauty that signaled this trek was in any way worth it.

…Nothing, I saw nothing. Just some shrubs and forest, like the rest of this Lizzo-forsaken mountain. Not a glorious vista, not a breathtaking canyon, not even a cute little rabbit to make me smile. I raced back to the bus, jumped inside, and collapsed onto one of the benches in the back.

Self-Pity City

To preface what happened next, I have to say, I didn’t cry often. Maybe a tear or two every once and a while, but nothing major.

I used to think that when characters in books were described as, “shaking,” and “sobbing,” it was all a little exaggerated. People rarely do that in real life, right? I had never experienced it, at least. In the second grade, I broke my arm at a neighbor’s house and didn’t cry until I walked all the way home and saw my mother’s worried face. Don’t get me wrong, I sometimes wondered if there was something wrong with me, because I cried so little.

But, in the back of the bus, laying on that bench… I bawled my eyes out.

My whole body could not stop shaking. I started wailing, like the anxiety was trying to escape through my vocal cords. Tears blurred my vision as they came down in waves onto my shirt, into my hands, onto the cushions, everywhere. I was truly soaked. At one point I was sure I’d throw up, leaning over the side of the bench, but it was just more wailing.

I cried hysterically like that for a good 10 minutes, then mellowed out into a quiet, tear streamed state for another 30. That’s when I started thinking about how absolutely stupid I had been.

I was not making it down this mountain alive. I had enough food in the bus to last me a week or two, so I could prolong my life at least until then, but I would still have to die eventually.

Thinking of my family again, I let the tears wash over me.

After not hearing from me, they’d probably look at my location on Find My, “last seen 5 hours ago” and wonder what happened to me. They’d be worried sick and I didn’t even tell them how much I loved them before I essentially unpurposefully killed myself. That’s what I was regretting the most, putting my family through losing a child, a sibling, out of sheer stupidity.

Side Note

Yes, I know. I realize how hysteric this sounds. But, this is what I was genuinely thinking! I was so consumed by the fact that I almost just flew off a cliff that the idea of going back down that same road with my waning bus was not possible.

In my mind, in that moment, I would never make it down alive. (I think the only other time I was this delusional was when I got lice in the bus… You can read about that mayhem here: Lice, Laundromats, and Losing My Mind)

Forget the fact that there were other people on this mountain, or the fact that a hot springs where people regularly go was super close by. It was either die trying to drive down this mountain, or die from starvation when I ran out of food. It was a scary, blood-curdling, movie-thriller death or a slow, devastatingly embarrassing, starvation death.

Death, death, death! AH, sweet death.

What’s for dinner? Death.

Knock knock. Who’s there? — WHO DO YOU THINK? IT’S DEATH.

… (:

Accepting My Fate

After more self pity, I decided I needed to eat something, but I couldn’t bring myself to cook anything substantial. Besides the fact that I still might puke it all up afterwards, it seemed pointless feeding a body that would be dead tomorrow. Sigh.

I got out a bag of corn chips and started watching a downloaded episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender on my phone.

Yup, me in my last moments on this earth decided to go for Tostitos Scoops and Sokka’s terrible puns. Sounds about right.

I sat there, trying to still my body. I need to calm down, I whispered to no one.

My body had stopped shaking at that point, but my heart was still fluttering wildly, unable to slow. I kept telling myself there was nothing I could do in that moment, so I might as well chill the fuck out.

If I was going to die, at least I knew it was coming. It’s not like a “Surprise – that’s the end for you!” Kind of death. It was more like a, “you were a stupid bitch, so duh,” kind of death.

Which was fair.

Eventually, I settled into bed and put on some calming music, pleading myself to sleep. I laid there exhausted, wide awake, and thinking about the next day’s inevitability.

Finally Some Actual Sanity Enters The Chat

Suddenly, a thought came to me: maybe I could get towed back down the mountain… I wouldn’t have to drive it. I might survive. My bank account would surely suffer, but I’d rather it die than me.

My heart started to slow a bit, calmed by the idea that I wouldn’t have to drive to my doom after all. The hot springs weren’t free, which meant there might be someone there collecting payment. There might even be cell service!

I mentally made a plan to walk to the hot springs and hopefully find a place with wifi or service. Then I would call a tow truck and eat that cost happily.

A terrifying thought occurred to me that a tow truck big enough to tow the bus wouldn’t be able to come up the mountain because of the road’s tight turns, but I pushed that thought out of my head aggressively. I would cross that bridge if I came to it.

I fell asleep around midnight, acknowledging the hard day ahead of me, that at least, might not include death after all.

What Happens Next…

A boy, a goat, and someone else’s hot springs. Part 2 coming next month…

Advice for the Next Adventurepreneur

Okay, I’m going to out myself real quick and say I put this blog through ChatGPT to check for spelling and grammar issues and asking where it could use improvement. It came back telling me I should add a section reflecting on what I learned. After analyzing my words, my experience, my story THIS is what it told me to add:

“Looking back now, I realize how much this experience taught me about myself. My refusal to acknowledge problems until they’re catastrophes and my tendency to soldier on alone rather than ask for help. My dramatic imagination that can turn a fixable situation into certain doom. But I also learned that even in my darkest moments, my brain eventually finds a way through. Maybe not elegantly or quickly, but it gets there.”

…

THE AUDACITY OF THIS ROBOT. “Refusal to acknowledge problems until they’re catastrophes”?! “My brain eventually finds a way… not elegantly or quickly”?! “DRAMATIC IMAGINATION”?!?!?! …I feel personally attacked!

But also… fine. Fair. Stupid artificial intelligence, what are you, my therapist?

So I guess the advice is: fuck AI, your therapist would do a better job proofreading your work. Hmph.

Also, it might be worth it to read The DIYer’s Guide to Choosing a Vanlife Vehicle so you know where I went oh-so-very wrong when choosing my vanlife vehicle. Don’t make the same mistakes I did, I beg you.

That’s all I can muster –

Love you, good luck, and stay sane (or at least sane-adjacent)

Alia