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(Note: This blog entry represents a combination of writings and pictures already posted about our Cool Change II, Land Yacht Adventures 2021 through Cindy via Facebook and Rick via email. So for some of you, the following posts may be duplicative, but for others, this is the first time you are seeing them. We are repeating them here to centralize the record and share our experiences more broadly.)

COMBINED POST, WITH RICK IN PLAIN TEXT AND CINDY IN ITALICS:

So we finished our preparations and got on the road to Roanoke, Texas.  Our travel would include an overnight rest stop in Kilgore, Texas at Harris St. RV Park, about 180 miles away.   The park was actually a city RV park and consisted of a strip of road between some athletic fields with eight RV spaces that branch off of both sides of the road.  At one corner of the park was a tall fence protecting an oil well that was in operation.  If we were to choose a park we stayed in on this trip with the absolute least aesthetic value, this would be it!  There were no trees, only grass and asphalt, and there were large red ant hills everywhere!  We were one of two RV’s staying there for the night.  On the plus side, our space had water and electricity, and there was very good water pressure.  Because of the latter, we decided that this might be a good place to wash the rig.  So in the morning we got out some gear and started in to wash both trailer and truck.  Unfortunately (remember the ant hills?) we stirred up some activity from the ants and boy were they were pissed! The ants got onto our feet and legs, almost unnoticed at first, but soon we were both getting bit and spraying them off of us with the hose.  We both had lots of bites but Cindy had a reaction far worse than mine and the bites stayed inflamed and with us for weeks after.  I’m sure the ant attack had a lot to do with my impression of Kilgore Texas; should I never go there again it will be way too soon.

We got away from Kilgore as fast as we could, headed now for Roanoke Texas, where we were looking forward to visiting with our daughter Andrea and her family.  Andrea is an Assistant Principal of a middle school in the Dallas, Ft. Worth area of Texas.  Her husband Josh runs a successful home appraisal business.  They live in a beautiful new subdivision in Justin, Texas, along with their young son Sam and daughter Teagan, a first year college student.  The drive looked to be easy, though we knew we would be passing through Dallas to get there. It was just 150 miles to the Northlake Village RV Park where we would be staying while visiting our daughter.

The drive had been uneventful until we found ourselves in a maze of interchanges in the heart of Dallas, affectionately known as “the mixmaster.” We had driven half way through this maze on Highway 30 and were attempting to transition to Highway 35e when our map program failed us.  It literally told us to take an exit we had just passed!  Cindy went into extreme navigator mode and soon had us off of the highway and into a new maze, this one of city streets.  She was working to backtrack us so we could get to an onramp for the exit we missed.  Later when we told Andrea about it, right away she said… “Oh yes, you were in the mixmaster!”

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Once we got back onto the correct highway, we had smooth sailing through NW Dallas and the rest of the way to Roanoke.   We arrived at the RV park and got settled in.  It was a huge park and seemed to have a mix of long term and transients like us.  They had a pool that was closed for some remodeling, and some decent private shower rooms.  Behind us was a green area and there were lots of kids playing games and having fun together.  Soon, another trailer pulled in next to us with several more kids.  Their dad told me that they had come for his kids’ soccer game, and that they brought their trailer so they would not have the expense of a hotel stay.

In the evening we noticed the wind was picking up and that it was getting pretty chilly outside.  When we went to bed that night, the wind continued getting  stronger to the point that we could feel it buffeting the trailer. The blinds were making a tapping sound on the windows as the trailer rocked.  At some point in the night, we heard a loud scraping sound coming from outside, like something was being blown away.  

As it happened, this was the night of tornadoes that devastated the town of Mayfield, Kentucky in December, 2021. The wind we experienced was part of a band of weather that passed over us heading NE across the country.  In the end, there were 75 deaths in Mayfield as a result of the tornadoes that night. In the morning, I went outside and saw what I at first thought was the hard plastic cover from someone’s air conditioner on the ground across the street.  Then I realized it was actually the cover to our own propane tanks! That then explained the scraping sound we had heard during the night as it was blown across the road.

Due to Cindy’s unplanned visit to San Francisco to be with her dying friend, we were delayed a week in getting to Andrea’s so her schedule was packed.  She was having a very busy week. The night we arrived she was working late at her school and the next day she would be participating in a 5k running event there.  Though we had originally planned on joining them for dinner that night at their home, we all decided it would be easier to to meet up at a local restaurant for dinner. After dinner we could all go over to their home for a visit, allowing for much less stress than Andrea trying to plan dinner for everyone after her busy day and week.   

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We went out to a favorite restaurant of theirs that was nearby and very popular. Andrea and Josh treated us to a wonderful dinner complete with their favorite appetizers and Margaritas.  It was great catching up and especially nice to have some time to get to know Josh a little better. We had not seen him since they were married.  Later that evening at their home, we met our grandson Sam for the first time in person and had a long awaited reunion with our granddaughter Teagan, who is attending college in the area.  Their new home was beautiful and they were all very happy with both the location and privacy they have had since moving there.  

Out back was a beautiful covered patio complete with a fireplace and a swimming pool for those long hot summer days!  Josh has a huge workshop/storage/man cave building at the back of the property that would be the envy of any guy his age.  He does his appraisal work out of an office he has set up in their home and he clearly enjoys and is good at his line of work.  Andrea is a rising star in her school where she is the assistant principal, and she gives her all to the job as she has always done. We had some presents for the grandchildren and we spent a delightful evening with everyone before heading back home.  

In the morning we took a walk around the park and got on our way.  We had originally planned on visiting some sailing friends that we had met in San Diego back in 2014 while on our passage to Mexico.  Bruce and Sandy are now living in Las Cruces Texas after sailing their small sailboat from Oregon to Mexico and eventually on to Australia. Unfortunately we felt a need to change our plans when we found out that one of them was not vaccinated.  At that time, the US had just started seeing cases of the Omicron variant, of which little was known other than it was much more contagious than the Delta variant. Though we were sad to miss the opportunity, we just did not feel comfortable taking that risk. 

We adjusted our route to head farther north and decided that we would head to Albuquerque, NM, because of a possibility to go on a hot air balloon ride.  I had recently read about a company there that advertises flights 365 days per year.  It is an area that is well known for the sport and it seemed like a safe place to go to have a first ride.

On our way, we decided to take a short detour from our route on Highway 287 to go up to El Dorado, Oklahoma. The only reason we were going to do this was that Cindy wanted to be able to add the Oklahoma sticker to our map of states we had visited on the trip!  What the heck, it was so close, we decided to go for it.

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When we got to the town of Quanah, we headed north on highway 6 to El Dorado. Almost immediately we came to a railroad crossing where a freight train was stopped.  We sat there in a small line of vehicles for a few minutes and then Cindy suggested that instead of waiting for the train to move, we might as well try to go around it. What could possibly go wrong?  So we got out of the queue and took a left turn to drive along a road that paralleled the track.  We went a few blocks and found a road where we could cross the tracks ahead of the train. On first look, I was apprehensive because the crossing looked like a place where we might get high-centered. Then as we got closer, it looked doable, so we continued and crossed over the tracks and went back to our route.  

After our short detour into Oklahoma, we got back on Highway 287 and made our way to the town of Childress, Texas.  There we stayed in another city park that had a few sites set up for RV’s. We were the only ones staying there but it turned out that the park was a pretty popular place.  The town had set up their entire Christmas display in the park and they really went all out.  The park is set around a small lake called “Park Lake” and there was a mile long trail going around the lake and through the park.  They had put lights and decorations everywhere, and in the evening when the lights came on, a steady stream of cars began arriving with locals setting out to stroll among the lights.  

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In the morning we were off for an easy day’s drive of 222 miles. We were headed to a state park in the high desert called Ute Lake State Park in New Mexico. To get there we would drive NW and pass through Amarillo, where we would connect with Highway 40, a part of Historic Route 66. When we got to Amarillo, we made the mistake of getting off the freeway to find somewhere to eat.  We actually got off on a couple of different exits but did not find any trailer-friendly parking situations, so we got back on the interstate.  We drove until we came to a small town called Vega and found a cute little one-person run diner called Lucy’s Kitchen.  We were able to park on the street and though she was getting ready to close right as we arrived, Lucy graciously allowed us to come in and place a to-go order. The place was spotless and the food was great.  Yes, should you find yourself in Vega Texas on Route 66, by all means go to Lucy’s Kitchen.

We had another couple of hours drive to reach our stop for the night in Ute State Park.  Apparently the lake was a big draw for the locals, but in the winter there was not much going on.  It was a big park with 126 sites, and all are easy access. It had nice shower facilities and was well maintained but really all we were looking for was a safe place to spend the night.  The memorable thing about this stop was that there  was a meteor shower that night and the sky was clear and dark.  I sat outside wrapped in blankets for as long as I could to see some of the display but soon made a hasty retreat back inside.  

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We were, after all, in the high desert in December, not the best time or place to be sitting outside at night!  Tomorrow we would be headed for Albuquerque, where we could bundle up and probably freeze our butts off on our early morning hot air balloon ride!

The next day on our drive to Albuquerque, it got very windy and we were starting to wonder about whether we really wanted to go ahead with our hot air balloon ride. We had arranged to stay in the balloon company’s parking lot that night so we would not have far to go the next morning.  Then, early in the day, we got a call from Rainbow Flyers letting us know that our flight had been canceled due to some expected high winds. No worries, we had been coming to that same conclusion ourselves.  The only problem was that we now needed a new place to stay that night in Albuquerque. We thought that with short notice, we should check the area for Harvest Host availability.  We contacted a host named Star Brothers Brewery and they told us we were welcome to stay with them. 

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As we got near Albuquerque, we were looking for fuel options.  The fuel prices had been increasing as we made our way back west, so we had been paying more attention to our Gas Buddy app to find the best prices.  Cindy located a station in Albuquerque in a sketchy part of town.  There were lots of people in the parking lot but it seemed we were the only ones there that were getting fuel. It looked like rest of the people were hopping in and out of cars, either doing drug deals or just trying to find someplace warm.  For whatever reason, it did not feel safe. I was hoping the brewery would be in a better part of town.

As it turned out, the area that the brewery was in was indeed much nicer and felt like a safe place to spend the night. The center where the brewery was located was in the middle of a fairly new complex of buildings. It was early when we arrived and they already were doing a brisk business. They told us where we could park the rig, which turned out to be in a gravel lot to the side of the complex.  We did not have a need to disconnect from the trailer so we did not.  For some reason I decided not to bother with using the trailer stabilizers either.  I thought it would make for a quick exit in the morning, but as it turned out, it was not the best choice.

The brewery was awesome and had a full dinner menu.  We had some dinner and a beverage or two and went back to the trailer to get some sleep.  Sometime late that night, the wind picked up and it was really blowing hard.  We were parked so that we were taking the gusts side-on, and things started getting interesting.  The trailer was rocking so much that had it not been attached to the truck, I really think it could have ended up on its side. So much for my decision not to use the stabilizers!  It was a long night and at times it rained pretty hard, along with the wind.  In the morning we got out of there as quickly as we could, figuring it would be a slow day due to the weather and icy roads.  What we encountered though, was much worse than expected.  As soon as we got back on interstate 40 out of Albuquerque, we started seeing electronic freeway signs warning of road delays ahead of up to four hours.  The combination of rain, ice, wind and truckers going way too fast for the conditions was resulting in some bad accidents; all of the ones we saw involved big rigs.  We counted nine crashes that day involving tractor-trailers.  At one point we got off the highway to go around a large slowdown due to a crash. There, a big rig who had tried to take the same route as we did had ended up stuck in the mud when the driver decided he was going to abort and go back.  We soon found out why he bailed, as there was a low overpass we had to drive under to get back to the freeway.  There was a truck in front of us creeping through with only a few inches clearance to the bridge.  We were fine at 10’ 6” but we were just hoping the truck in front of us made it or we were going to be in for a bad time if we had to somehow turn around there and retreat.

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By the time we got to our campground that night, we were both exhausted.  We were staying at Homolovi Ruins State Park near Winslow, Arizona.  As with the last park, there were only a few campers. We were still in the high desert and temps were expected to dip into the teens that night.  Sure enough, when we woke up the next morning, it was about 11 degrees, and our water pipes had frozen solid!  When Cindy made the reservation, we had planned to stay for 2 nights. We could then do some hiking to see the historical Native American ruins in the area.  We decided we needed to make a change of plans and get somewhere a little warmer so that we could thaw out the plumbing.  I was hoping none of the pipes would crack and burst before we were able to thaw them out.

We found an RV park in Kingman,  Arizona for the next night at a lower elevation. The weather was predicated to be in the low thirty’s there and this was sounding much better!   On our way though, just outside of the area we were leaving that morning, was Winslow, Arizona. We had been there before, but we could not pass it up as it is a fun town made famous by the Eagles song from the 70’s “Take It Easy.”  So soon we were “standin’ on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see….” The other fun part of this story is that Winslow is Cindy’s maiden name.  

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We visited a store full of Route 66 and Eagles memorabilia on the same corner, and Cindy could not resist getting a t-shirt to commemorate our visit there once again.

The drive from Winslow to Kingman, Arizona was 210 miles. When we arrived, it felt like springtime compared to where we were the night before, and compared to the 8,000 foot pass we went over that is close to Flagstaff.  By the time we arrived, our pipes had already mostly thawed out, and luckily we had no leaks.  The park was a private one so of course it was crowded but it had some great hot showers and it was an easy stop.  

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By this time we had heard confirmation from our daughter Sarah that she and her boyfriend Justin were going to be in our area over Christmas and wanted to be with us. We were excited by this and it was another reason, along with the change in weather, that we were pushing on for home at such a pace.

We left Kingston for yet another, our last Harvest Host location in Yermo, California, and a 200 mile day.  This Harvest Host was the most unique of any we had yet visited as it was actually a  well known historic diner called “Peggy Sues.” The diner was built in 1954, originally constructed of old railroad ties and mortar from a nearby railyard. At that time, it only had  a counter with nine barstools and three booths. It closed down at some point and in the early 80’s was purchased by Peggy Sue and her husband Champ, who restored it and turned it into the 50’s themed diner it is today. 

Peggy Sue was an actress that appeared in over 100 movies and ads.  Her husband Champ was a chef at Knott’s Berry Farm.  They expanded the restaurant to its current size and filled it with Hollywood memorabilia. It would be easy to spend hours looking at everything they had on display including life-size statues of “The Blues Brothers.” 

In addition to the restaurant, there is a large gift shop, an ice cream parlor and a pizzeria!  Out back is a “Diner saur” park complete with duck and turtle ponds.  Yes, it sounds a little tacky and it is, but it is just fun!   The parking lot was big enough that there would never be a problem having enough space to spend the night.   There were several big rigs the night we arrived and one other 5th wheel trailer.  Initially, when  we arrived, we were a little concerned about eating there because there were a lot of people inside.  We waited awhile later though, and went in to find it much less crowded.  We had old-school hamburgers and a chocolate shake served in a glass along with the metal mixing cup refill.  I have not had a milkshake like that since I was a kid.  We had a quiet night in the parking lot and in the morning went in for an early breakfast.  I had their signature chicken fried steak and eggs and it was the best I have ever had, hands down.

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We made a stop in Bakersfield to meet my brother Andrew and niece Alexa, where we got caught up and shared a lunch  before continuing on our way to what would be our last stop of the trip at Island Park, near Fresno, Ca. 

We were not expecting much, just a last two-night stay in a campground close to home to wrap up the trip.  What we found, though, was a beautiful campground in the Sierra foothills with breathtaking views of Pine Lake below our site.  Though we had booked another site, there was only one other camper in the park so we roamed around and picked out a new site that we both agreed was the best spot in the park!

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We had a wonderful last two days of our trip in this campground.  We took a few  long walks and enjoyed camp fires at night.  It was a great way to end our travels.

Our last week on the road coming home was not without the challenges of adventure: we faced 50 mph winds while parked overnight in a large, wide open parking lot in Albuquerque with no protection; we crossed a 7300 foot summit in Flagstaff just after a windy, icy storm, where we saw at least five big rigs flipped over on the highway over the course of one day; and we woke up to frozen pipes in a campground near Winslow, Arizona. But we also enjoyed a 50’s style chocolate milkshake, served the old fashioned way with a metal container holding the extra, and had a lovely time for two nights at our final campground in California before coming home.

When we left the area we had just another five hours’ drive to get back to our home and life in Coloma.  

TO SUM UP:

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All told we travelled for six months and one day. We covered more than 14,000 miles, a distance equal to more than halfway around the earth, averaging 10.6 mpg. Our route generally followed a U.S. circumnavigation path, staying close to the borders all the way around, except for a dip down to St. Louis and Tennessee. We passed through 39 states, and camped at 28 different public campgrounds, 10 private RV parks, five “Harvest Host” locations, seven private homes and eight boondocking locations including five Walmarts.

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BEST OF:

Of all of our adventures, some stood out as “best of the trip.”

Best Campsite: Our final campsite of the trip, Island Park at Pine Flat Lake, east of Fresno. We thought we had found the best campground ever when we arrived at Whistler’s Bend campground in Oregon at the beginning of our trip. We were almost the only ones in the campground and our site was right along the river; it was just gorgeous. But then as we continued down the road, we said the same thing about the next campground and the next and the next; it seemed like every campground was more beautiful than the last. Illahee State Park in Washington was lovely and only a short drive from our son Drew’s house; the campsite we got at Three Mile campground outside of the east entrance to Yellowstone was an amazing stroke of good fortune because it was First Come First Serve, cheap, the best site of the whole campground and only 3 miles from the Park; Sheridan Lake Campground in the Black Hills of South Dakota was deep in the woods; and that was only in the first month of a six month trip! We would go back to many of the places we stayed, for a longer visit this time. Our only regret was probably that our schedule forced us to move on too quickly. But if I am forced to choose the best campsite, in keeping with the contention that each one was better than the last, it makes sense to choose the last campsite of our trip, at Island Park on Pine Flat Lake in the foothills of the Sierras east of Fresno in California. Again, there was hardly anyone in the entire park. We had a view of the sunset over the mountain lake and a view of the rise of the full moon. It was cool enough in December to want a fire, and wet enough that fires were allowed. A splendid end to our trip.

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The Daily Catch in Boston offered the Best Restaurant Food of the entire trip: As my weight gain can attest, we ate really, really well on this trip. Gosh, there are so many candidates for the best restaurant food: ribs at Bubba’s BBQ in Cody, Wyoming; whole lobster in Portland, Maine; fresh oysters at Dolce Fumo in Boston; She Crab Soup at The Old Pirate’s House and the ice cream sundae at Leopold’s in Savannah; warm dates stuffed with goat cheese and wrapped with prosciutto at Santiago’s Bodega in Key West; and gumbo and boudin at the Gumbo Shop in New Orleans, to name a few. And this list doesn’t even include all the home-cooked meals our relatives and friends served us throughout our trip. I don’t dare even compare any of those! But we both agreed that for restaurant dining, the prize goes to the Aglio Olio, a squid ink linguini dish with sautéed ground calamari, olive oil, fresh garlic and parsley served at The Daily Catch in Boston’s North End.

The guy who gave us a ride from the campground to Portland to pick up our truck was the Most Helpful Stranger of our entire trip: We were fairly self sufficient so we really didn’t have to rely on the kindness of strangers much during the trip, but there were a handful of times, mostly involving problems with the rig, where we would have been in a real pickle had someone not stepped up and gone out of their way to help us. Mostly the people who helped us were doing their jobs, but they set aside other jobs on their priority list to help us in an emergency. There were the office manager and the master mechanic at the O’Reilly’s VIP tire center in Rochester, New Hampshire who helped to fix a leaky tire valve at closing time on a Friday night, free of charge; there was the welder in New Hampshire who squeezed time into his busy schedule to weld our cracked trailer frame; there was the tow truck driver who waited for our Uber driver to arrive on a cold, rainy Maine night before he left us to tow our truck away; and there was the service manager at Lee Dodge in Westbrook, Maine who moved the wait time to replace our alternator from two months to one day. But the award for the most helpful stranger goes to the camper in Winslow Park campground near Portland, Maine who drove us 45 minutes from the campground to pick up our truck from the dealer when the repairs were complete. Uber had dropped us off at the campground but wouldn’t pick us up there, so we were alone in the campground without a vehicle. The camper just happened to have an optional business engagement in Portland that day, and decided our need for a ride was a sign that he should go to the business meeting!

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Glacier National Park, Best Scenery of entire trip. We travelled through such diversity, from the mountains of the West to densely-treed hillsides of the Black Hills to rolling pastures of mid-Tennessee to the flat soybean fields of the Midwest to the lush green forests of the Northeast to the marshes of the southeast to the beaches of the East Coast and Florida, then back through the wide open expanses of Texas and the high deserts of the Southwest. I gasped as my breath was taken away around multiple turns on multiple scenic roadways throughout our vast country. But of all of these, and maybe it was just because it was close to the beginning of our trip so our senses weren’t dulled yet by the sheer abundance of the vistas, Glacier National Park wins, followed closely by the Big Horn mountains in northern Wyoming. The Big Horns reminded us both of what we imagined the Badlands to look like, until we actually drove through what they actually call the Badlands. It was dreadful to imagine a covered wagon trying to traverse those deep, sandy ravines and steep cliffs with no valleys for respite.

Yellowstone National Park, Old Faithful area boardwalk we rated as our Best Hike: we tried to find a hike in every campground we stayed in and in all of the national parks we visited, but mind you, our idea of a good hike is at least 3 but no more than 5 miles on reasonable terrain – we are not as young as we used to be, or at least I am not. I have to be careful not to overdo these bionic hips of mine. Anyway, if there was a hike to be had that day, we took it. I was most enchanted by the hike we took in Skidaway Park near Savannah, mostly because I was fascinated by the Spanish Moss hanging from the live oak trees, the legends of moonshine being made in the swamps, and the prospect of an alligator appearing at the edge of the algae-covered slough. Walking on a boardwalk through the wildflower-covered marshes of the middle of Ohio somehow remains planted in my memory, and the hike through the woods in Winslow Campground in Maine around a peninsula jutting into Casco Bay was stunning. The walks we took on the beach near Jacksonville, Florida were wonderful because the beach was so long and so wide and there were so few people there, we felt like we had it all to ourselves. One surprisingly delightful hike that was totally unexpected was smack in the middle of a highly developed urban area outside of Washington DC called Reston, Virginia. We picked a campground there due to its proximity to DC but had no idea that it was surrounded by a forest with well-defined paths up and down through wooded hillsides.

The hike up to Hidden Lake from the top of Glacier National Park was spectacular, especially because we had to traverse several snow fields. The boardwalks we found in the Everglades were other-worldly, with Cypress and Mangrove trees thriving in salt water in a dense thicket where birds and other wildlife abound. And we can’t forget Fifth Avenue and Broadway in New York City. But while all of these hikes were beautiful in their own way, the most unusual was the four mile boardwalk through the bubbling waters in the Old Faithful region of Yellowstone National Park. So that is probably where we should place the star.

The residents at the Royal Palms RV Park in Big Pine Key, Florida made their campground our vote for Best private campground: There is no doubt that even the worst public campground topped the best private campground for scenery. Neither of us could ever imagine why anyone would choose a private RV park over a public campground; they are far more expensive, the spaces or no bigger than a postage stamp, trees or even grass is a rare commodity, the celebrated free wifi rarely works for anything more than email, and you are crowded into them like sardines. However, there were no public campgrounds with space in the Florida Keys, so we had to make reservations in a private RV park. We must admit that the Royal Palms RV Park in Big Pine Key, where we stayed for a full two weeks, was the friendliest, most welcoming group of people we met throughout our trip. The facilities were excellent, including their wifi, and the residents’ warmth more than compensated for the less than natural surroundings.

Best family/friend gathering: All of them! Here we are pictured with the last family visit of our trip: our daughter Andrea and her family near Ft. Worth, Texas. Since we have been mostly out of the U.S. since 2014 and then restricted by COVID lockdowns, we had a lot of family catching up to do. So more than anything else, this voyage was about visiting with relatives and friends all across the country. It started with visiting Cindy’s early adulthood San Francisco friends who now live in Oregon, Marina and Park, followed by a visit with our daughter Sarah and her partner Justin in Portland, then on to our sons Dan and Drew with their partners Leanne and Angela and children Addison and Kadence. Then we visited with the family of rafting friends Laura and Mark, all in Washington State, and on to Nebraska to visit Cindy’s oldest sister Bonnie’s youngest daughter Julie, Chuck and their children Elise and Charlie. Charlie’s high school graduation party was scheduled for the weekend we arrived, so we got a preview of a lot of the family we would be seeing again later. Then on to Minneapolis to visit Cindy’s sister Bonnie and Ron, and her youngest son Kevin and his adorable three children Madeleine, Daphne, Sebastian and wife Eliza, plus great-nephew T.J. was there. Then Bonnie drove us up to Duluth to visit the family of her oldest son Curt and his wife Nicki, along with Curran, Estella and Everlee.

Then we headed down to Chicago to visit Cindy’s younger sister Kim and Pete, their son Bob, their daughter Erin and her husband Danny, and their daughters Kiara and Arianna. Then down to St. Louis to visit Bonnie’s oldest daughter Laurie, her husband Ted and their other son Nicholas. Then over to Tennessee to visit Cindy’s cousin Jill with her husband Don, and back up to New York State to visit Kim’s older son Dan and his wife Stephanie, their twins Molly and Maggie, and their newborn, June, named after their great grandmother, Cindy’s mother. Then on to New Hampshire to visit with the family of Rick sister Chrysse and Barry and two of their children, Maria Rae and Mark, and over to Maine to visit with the family of Cindy’s college friend David and Mel and their son Sean and his family. Next, we flew back home and to Washington state again to reunite with our kids in October, and then on to Connecticut to visit with Rick’s friend from his work days and his family, Jeff and Dede and one of their daughters, Sara, where they were kind enough to let us park our rig while we visited New York City. Then there was Cindy’s cousin John Winslow in Washington, DC, and sailing friends Julie and John in Annapolis, Maryland, followed by a reunion with Kim and Pete in Key West. And finally, we visited with our daughter Andrea and Josh and their children Teagan and Sam in Texas. Phew! Breathing new life into all of those relationships was a gift to our souls.

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CLOSING WORDS

We visited and stayed with family and friends all across the country, some whom we had not seen in many years. We are forever thankful for the hospitality that was shown to us by those same family and friends, as well as new friends we made along the way.  

Over the course of our trip, we met lots of people from lots of different places throughout the US, whose views about everything differed so much from ours and from each other that it was sometimes as though they were from separate countries. One friendly campground host in Tennessee chuckled when he saw we were from California, saying that we were “from that other country that thinks it is part of the United States.” I found myself listening more and defending myself less, mostly because I would rather leave an impression with a stranger as a peacemaker instead of a troublemaker. I guess maybe this trip has expanded my tolerance of our differences, as hard to swallow as they may be. I recognize also that as an older, white, heterosexual couple, we were less intimidating and more easily accepted by less exposed Americans than many others who didn’t look like us would have been. Nevertheless, it was truly amazing to witness the beauty and diversity of our vast country, and we rarely met anyone who wasn’t kind to us.

In 2022 we plan on staying home and grounding ourselves after such a long and exciting trip of daily change, at least until Tonga opens its borders (we hope) so we can return to our beloved Cool Change. But for now, I would just like to wake up consistently in my bed at home, know where I am, and be reassured that I am not going any farther than my feet can take me!

It was an awesome journey and only really came about by chance. If not for the pandemic, leaving us with no option to continue travels on our boat, and a friend offering to sell us the trailer we used for this trip, it would not have come to fruition.  Though the pandemic has taken a horrible toll on our nation and the entire world, life goes on until it does not.  

Making this trip in the midst of a pandemic might seem foolhardy to some, and it did have some risks.  We did do all that was in our power, though, to mitigate those risks, and I think that in the end, our mode of travel was probably the safest given the state of the nation.  I am perhaps most grateful just for the fact that we really had nothing holding us back from making this journey and I do hope that you got some enjoyment following along on our voyage.

Waldo Emerson once said, “It is never about the destination, only the journey that matters.” Life is short, so keep moving! No wasted days.