Sunday, August 17

We are back home in New Haven after a fabulous trip, the longest we have ever taken: 9,614 miles registered on the odometer (plus many miles on the ferries) in 9-1/2 weeks, across the continent and back . Our return trip took just two weeks from Vancouver to New Haven and was highlighted by wonderful visits with family and friends: Lynn and Greg in Vancouver; cousin Fred in Blaine; Matthew and Gudrun in Seattle; Josie and Jim on their ranch in Montana; Kathy and Bill, who drove up from Minneapolis to meet us in Duluth; Bob, Jessica, Michele, Pamela, Steve, and Anders in Ann Arbor; Nancy and Nat in Cleveland; David, Steve, Hans, and Paul in Rochester; and to top it all off, Dick's 55th high-school reunion in Fayetteville.

Along the way we revisited two favorite spots from the 2001 maiden voyage of the camper: Glacier National Park, and the Missouri River with Lewis and Clark, this time at the Lewis and Clark State Park in Epping, North Dakota. We followed a northerly route across the country, and we were always thinking about what was north of us across the Canadian border that we had visited on the way out. As we crossed the Cascades in Washington we were aware that these mountains join the coastal range that forms the backdrop to Vancouver and that we crossed between Whitehorse and Skagway, Alaska . In Glacier Park we remembered looking south from Fort Macloud and seeing these mountains in the distance. Wheat fields, grain elevators, and oil wells in eastern Montana reminded us of Saskatchewan. We camped by the Red River in East Grand Forks, MN, and had dinner at the Blue Moose Bar and Grill; from there we called our friends Chris and Irene due north in Winnipeg, where we had taken a boat ride on the Red River. In Duluth we watched an elevator bridge go up and down for huge ore ships as well as little tour boats; it marks the western terminus of the St. Lawrence Seaway, and we had crossed the St. Lawrence River at the very start of our trip. When we hit the upper peninsula of Michigan, we remembered that long day driving through the forests above Lake Superior, as well as our wonderful campsite at Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, near Thunder Bay. And here on the southern shore of Lake Superior, we stopped in lovely Grand Marais, where we had camped with our first tent in 1963, while Dick was in law school . In fifty years of camping we have gone from backpacks and a hunk of canvas, to a big blue tent with a sewn-in floor to accomodate the children, to a VW camper bus, to a leaner tent that could be portaged on canoe trips, and now to this Ford van. We don't aspire to anything bigger.


The most surprising fact about this adventure was that on all our previous trips in this camper, none of which lasted more than three weeks, we have always spent one or two nights a week in a motel. We expected to do that this time as well, but we didn't feel the need; our bed was so comfortable and we found such beautiful and quiet places to camp. Prior to our return trip we spent only three nights under a roof. How could we still be talking to each other after being together all that time in such a confined space? By responding to the other's moods and needs and developing an elaborate dance, moving back and forth between the front seat and the back space so that we would not bump into each other. We would even suggest to anyone contemplating marriage that they first try living for a couple of months in an Adventurewagen! We have passed that test with flying colors, and we are now looking forward to the actual day of our golden anniversary, which is coming up soon, and which we have already celebrated in such a grand manner with our Alaska adventure.