The Summit Behind America the Beautiful, Colorado's Wildfires, and the Animal That Really Charges

Good morning! It's Wednesday, July 8. The West is having one of its worst fire weeks in years and we've got what you need to know before you head that way, the animal most likely to charge you this summer is the one you stopped to photograph, and the ravens at your campsite have the whole valley memorized.

First time reading? This is your five-minute catch-up on everything that happened in the RV and outdoor world this week: timely, useful, and a little brighter than the rest of your inbox. Join us and sign up here.

Know someone who'd love this? Forward it. Thoughts on this issue? Hit reply (we read every one), or email hello@swervia.com.

— OK WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING —

If your summer route runs anywhere west of the Rockies, read this before you roll. Utah and Colorado are both burning hard right now. In Utah, the Babylon Fire near Monticello has pushed past 100,000 acres at zero percent contained, the largest wildfire burning anywhere in the country this week, and the state has already lost more acreage this year than in the previous five combined. In Colorado, the Aspen Acres Fire in Pueblo and Custer counties has topped 94,000 acres and destroyed at least 263 homes, with mandatory evacuations in Beulah, Colorado City, and Wetmore plus a burn ban and heavy smoke along the Front Range. Those are just the largest of more than a dozen fires across the two states, and officials are calling conditions the most extreme they've seen in decades. If the Southwest is on your map this month, check a live fire tracker the morning you head out rather than the week before, honor every closure and evacuation order, and give the crews room. The human toll is real: hundreds of families have already lost homes, and this is not the week to slow down and gawk.

— OK BUT A LOT MORE HAPPENED —

> Drew Barrymore sold the mansion and bought the RV. After parting with her reported $5 million Westchester home, the actress has been showing off her rig instead, which is either a midlife plot twist or proof the RV crowd has been onto something all along. Welcome to the club, Drew. (More)

> The ravens at your campsite are smarter than the guy who left his cooler out. A two-and-a-half-year Yellowstone study tracked 69 ravens and found they don't just trail wolves for scraps, they remember where the kills happen and get there first, beating every other scavenger to the table. The bird eyeing your picnic table has the whole valley memorized. Your entire defense plan is a cooler lid and blind optimism. (More)

— OK BUT YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS —

Everyone packs the bear spray and scans the ridgeline for something with claws, but in Canada the animal behind most aggressive wildlife encounters is the one nobody fears: the elk. It accounts for roughly 62 percent of them, well ahead of grizzlies and black bears combined, usually because someone crept in for a better photo or got between a cow and her calf. The fix is boring and it works. Make noise so you never surprise anything, keep the dog leashed, and treat every big animal as though it has a bad temper and a personal-space rule, which the US parks will happily spell out in feet. No photo has ever been worth a helicopter ride.

— OK NOW HERE'S SOME RETAIL THERAPY —

> Portable misting fan — For RVers stuck in the heat dome, this is the difference between a nap and a sweat lodge when the AC isn't an option. It clamps to a rail or an awning pole, runs up to 55 hours on a single charge, and the built-in tank throws a fine mist that takes the edge off the worst part of the afternoon.

> World Cup inflatable lounger — The 2026 World Cup is being played in our own backyard this summer, and for the football aka soccer fans watching from a campsite, this blow-up lounger fills with a scoop of air in a few seconds, packs down to nothing, and holds up in the grass, on the beach, or in front of the tailgate screen. No pump, no poles, just a good seat for the match. Goooooaaaaalllllll.

— OK BUT YOU SHOULD TOTALLY GO HERE —

Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas — If the heat dome has you already daydreaming about a cooler fall trip, start the list here. The sixth least-visited national park hides the highest point in Texas and the best fall color in the state, and almost nobody is there to fight you for it. McKittrick Canyon turns gold and red deep into October, foliage nobody expects out of West Texas, and after dark the night sky has nothing to apologize for. When you go, roll in with full tanks and full batteries: Pine Springs and Dog Canyon have a handful of RV-length sites up to 50 feet and no hookups anywhere in the park.

Highway 36, Missouri — This one's for the backroads lovers. Interstates get you there; this two-lane gets you the story. Running west to east across the top of the state, the road they call "The Way of American Genius" strings together the launch point of the Pony Express in St. Joseph, Walt Disney's boyhood town of Marceline, the Chillicothe bakery where sliced bread was first sold in 1928, and finally Hannibal, where a kid named Sam Clemens grew up watching riverboats and became Mark Twain. Small-town campgrounds and county parks dot the whole run, and Hannibal has riverside sites on the Mississippi, so you can pull over and spend the night in whichever piece of history grabs you.

— OK BUT DID YOU SEE THIS —

The under-the-radar Jersey Shore town where a young Taylor Swift spent her summers, back when her biggest stage was the local coffee-shop open mic.

The Dutton ranch from Yellowstone is a real 2,500-acre working cattle spread near Darby, Montana, and the reason to RV there isn't the show, it's the setting: the Bitterroot Valley, a mountain-walled run of ranch land and trout rivers along Highway 93 that most road trips blow right past.

Two North Carolina sisters have built a business out of gutting tired old campers and turning them into homes people actually want to live in.

An hour up the Hudson Valley sits a sleepy town, museum and annual festival and all, that has spent forty years calling itself the UFO capital of the East Coast.

For anyone who wants to touch grass without actually touching grass, or who is just done unrolling the outdoor mat on top of the nearest ant hill, someone finally invented a bolt-on deck that brings the patio with you.

The Dump Station A semi hauling nearly 40,000 pounds of Frank's RedHot went down on an Ohio interstate mid-heatwave, and here is the part that gets us: the sauce was too acidic to hose into the storm drains, so hazmat crews had to come clean up the wing order. For once the slogan holds up. They really do put that stuff on everything.

The Odometer 600 — the number of feet a Yellowstone hydrothermal explosion can hurl rock and scalding water into the air, which is why the blast that vaporized a Biscuit Basin boardwalk in 2024 is now watched in real time.

— OK BUT THE RV DOESN'T PAY FOR ITSELF —

Camp Handyperson — Eutawville, SC. Bell's Marina & Resort on Lake Marion trades a full RV site for about 20 hours a week of hands-on fixing, plus paid hours starting at $12 an hour. This one is for the full-timer who already owns the tools, not the summer dabbler, but an hour from Charleston is a fine place to be handy.

Guest Lighthouse Keeper — Rogers City, MI. Yes, this is real: Forty Mile Point Lighthouse on Lake Huron parks you in one of four full-hookup, 50-amp sites and asks you to play docent 20-some hours a week, firewood and a golf cart included. Couples work the same shifts. The season is open right now.

Housekeeping & Maintenance — Wimberley, TX. Horseshoe Ridge RV Resort in the Hill Country hands over a free full-hookup site with fiber Wi-Fi at the pedestal, plus a $125 monthly electric reimbursement, in exchange for housekeeping or grounds work. It's about 45 minutes from Austin; reach them at stay@horseshoeridgerv.com.

— OK BUT WHO EVEN IS THIS PERSON —

Half the country mumbled "purple mountain majesties" at least once last week without knowing those words have a specific address. In the summer of 1893, a Wellesley professor named Katharine Lee Bates took the long, dusty haul to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado, looked out at the plains folding away to the east, and wrote the poem that became "America the Beautiful" on the ride back down. Here's the twist: the mountain that inspired the prettiest words in American music is named for a man who never got to the top of it. Zebulon Pike was a young Army officer sent to poke around the southern edge of the Louisiana Purchase in 1806. He spotted the great blue peak from miles out, decided to climb it, got stopped cold by November snow, and wrote in his journal that no human being would ever reach its summit. Fourteen years later somebody did, and people have been doing it by trail, road, and railway ever since. He got the naming rights anyway, along with a Pike County in state after state, which is a lot to show for a hike he lost.

Like this? Get it free every Wednesday. Subscribe →

OK but what’s with the name Swervia? It’s everything we love about RVing, packed into one name. “Swerve” for the twists, turns, and unexpected detours that make travel – and life – worth remembering. “We RV” because, well, we do. And “Via” for the roads that actually get you somewhere.

Send us your feedback at hello@swervia.com and help us avoid a wrong turn. We aren’t afraid to ask for directions.

Products you buy through our links may earn us a commission.

© 2026 Swervia, Inc.